


As It’s Meant To Be

by kathierif_fic



Category: Inception (2010), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Community: xover_exchange, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathierif_fic/pseuds/kathierif_fic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Thor asks the Avengers for help because he believes someone has been messing with the head of his son from the future, they don't hesitate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It’s Meant To Be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrighteyedJill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/gifts).



> written for the [xover-exchange@lj.com](http://xover-exchange.livejournal.com) round 2012/2013 for [brighteyed_jill](http://brighteyed_jill.livejournal.com).
> 
> Thank you very much, mods, for a great challenge!

Arthur met the client in a seedy bar where both he and the man he was meeting with stood out like sore thumbs in their suits. 

The meeting spot wasn’t something Arthur was overly comfortable with, but he remained calm and reminded himself that Eames was close-by and that he had been in worse spots in the past, mostly with Dom Cobb, back when they had been on the run.

When Dom had been on the run and Arthur had done his best to help him.

There was something off about this client, something Arthur didn’t like but couldn’t pin down with words. The client refused to give a name, and something about the glimmer of emotion in his expressive green eyes tugged at Arthur’s ancient instinct to run for his life.

Something told him the client knew exactly which effect he had on Arthur, and that he reveled in it.

Arthur, for his part, tried to ignore it and stayed professional. He accepted the briefcase with the first half of their agreed salary and the thick envelope with the information about their mark, promised to call, and left without looking back over his shoulder.

~~

The first thing he did when he was back in his hotel room was to take a long, hot shower.

~~

When Eames found out - and of course he did; Eames was very perceptive and finely attuned to Arthur’s moods - he laughed.

“Come on, love,” he murmured against the back of Arthur’s neck, which was tense and unyielding. “This bloke hired us because we are the best. He’s not going to find us again once the job is done. We’re professionals.”

Arthur didn’t reply, and he didn’t uncurl from where he’d rolled himself into the sheets in a huff of annoyance when Eames had started laughing, and Eames kissed his bare shoulder gently and ran his broad hand down Arthur’s spine in a sluggish caress. He hummed softly and pressed himself closer to Arthur. “You say the word,” he murmured, his breath cool against Arthur’s ear. “You tell me you’re not excited about working with me, with us, again, and we walk away, you and me, without looking back, and we go back to our boring lives of petty crime and industrial espionage.”

“Or the legal side of dreamsharing,” Arthur quietly pointed out, the words half muffled by the forearm over his face. His words told Eames that Arthur was seriously considering to walk away from this job, and it also explained why Arthur had taken so few new jobs after the successful inception. “There are enough other jobs, and forgers are always in high demand, especially someone as good as you are.”

Eames hummed in pleasure at the rare compliment, choosing to ignore the frustrated tone of Arthur’s voice, before rolling them over so that he ended up kneeling next to Arthur. He bent down to kiss a line down his chest, moving slowly and carefully.

Arthur wasn’t some delicate little thing that needed to be touched with velvet gloves, and Eames knew that better than anyone, except maybe Dom Cobb. He still liked to indulge himself sometimes, and so far, Arthur hadn’t complained about it although Eames was sure he knew what was happening. 

“The job seems easy enough,” he mused as he pulled the sheet away from the sharp cut of Arthur’s hip.

“It still is a form of inception,” Arthur sharply protested. “Never easy.” He gasped quietly, his spine arching as Eames rubbed the pad of his thumb against the tip of his cock.

“We’ll be careful,” Eames murmured soothingly. “And I really can’t help to think it seems unspectacular. Convince a playboy to hook up with a woman.”

“A playboy that doesn’t exist,” Arthur pointed out what was worrying him while at the same time spreading his legs apart and giving Eames room to settle between them. “All the information we have about the mark comes from one source - the client.”

Eames shrugged as he pulled one of Arthur’s legs over his thigh. “He pays well. Maybe you should give Cobb a call, see if he’s interested. He is the best at inception, after all. The only one who managed to do it successfully. Twice.”

“No,” Arthur firmly replied. “Dom has retired. He’s out of the game. The kids need him. We can do whatever is necessary without getting him involved.”

Eames fingers slipped between Arthur’s legs. “Let’s postpone this discussion, darling,” he murmured softly. “There is something else I want you to focus on right now.” He leaned over Arthur, their lips met in a deep kiss, and the job was forgotten for a few blissful moments, together with the protest Eames was sure Arthur was about to utter.

~~

Ariadne showed up the next morning with croissants and so the team was complete when the call came. Arthur picked up his phone, a sleek little black thing with a telltale S emblazoned on the casing, and stepped into the bathroom to take it.

Ariadne curiously looked around the room. “This is Arthur’s hotel room, isn’t it?” she asked.

Eames didn’t look up from the file he was reading, but he nodded and made an affirmative sound around his coffee. 

“I’m tempted to try and find out if he has goofy cartoon character pajamas,” Ariadne confessed, but since she didn’t make a move to get out of her chair and actually snoop around, Eames only grinned and continued with his reading. He knew, of course, that at the bottom of Arthur’s suitcase, there was a faded t-shirt with a famous shield-design printed on it, but it was one of the many secrets of Arthur’s he kept and was planning on keeping.

It was the sound of the bathroom door falling shut with some force that made him look up.

Arthur was leaning against the door, his hand clenched tightly around his phone. His lips were pressed tightly together, and the set of his shoulders made Eames actually get up and take a step toward him. “What happened?”

“Our client,” Arthur replied in short, clipped words. “He wants to make sure we take this job - and succeed.”

Eames frowned. There was more to the story, he could feel that, and the way Arthur acted made goosebumps appear on his forearms.

“What did you tell him?” Ariadne asked quietly, and Arthur took a deep breath and slowly released it.

“After he casually mentioned how important family is and how much he would hate if something happened to ours, considering the many tragic accidents that can happen, say at a school in Los Angeles, I told him we take the job.”

The grim expression and the tension were explained with that, Eames thought as he took Arthur’s arm and tugged him back to the bed. He didn’t try to touch him beyond that, knowing it wouldn’t be welcome at this point.

“He threatened Cobb?” Ariadne asked, her voice going up as her eyes widened. “Can he do that?”

“Apparently, yes,” Eames said.

“He didn’t threaten Dom,” Arthur pointed out and ran his hand through his hair. “He threatened us. Me.”

“Us?” Ariadne asked. Eames could almost taste her confusion.

“Didn’t you know Philippa Cobb is our Arthur’s godchild?” he asked, trying to diffuse the tension in the room a little.

“No,” Ariadne admitted. “Really? He never said anything about that.” She flushed. “I mean, not that we talked about you. Or anything. It’s just, I didn’t think you two had known each other for that long.” She grimaced and focused on her croissant.

“Really,” Eames confirmed with a grin. It looked as if Ariadne had visited Cobb after they had separated, and had spent some time with him.

He turned back to Arthur. “So, we take the job?”

“I have to. You are free to go,” Arthur pointed out coldly.

Eames and Ariadne exchanged a quick glance.

“Okay,” Ariadne said slowly. “What do we have?”

~~

There really wasn’t any information to be found about their intended mark, a man named James Kirk, or the woman they were supposed to make him get attracted to.

“Nothing,” Arthur said and leaned back into his chair. “The only information we have comes from the client. Nothing has changed there.”

“And you really can’t find anything else?” Ariadne asked from where she was sitting crosslegged on the bed, a pad of paper in her lap and a pencil in her hand. She had started building mazes as soon as Arthur had told her the specifics of the job.

“Nothing,” Arthur said and tiredly rubbed his eyes. “We’re flying blind here.”

“Perfect,” Eames muttered, his own pen stuck between his teeth, but both Arthur and Ariadne ignored him.

~~

“Hey, Cap.” Tony stopped what he was doing and watched as Steve took the chair opposite Tony instead of his custom spot at the head of the table. “So...I’m guessing it wasn’t you who called this meeting.”

Steve shrugged. “I know as much as you do, Stark.” He looked around the open floor of the kitchen, as if it could tell him the answer to his question.

Tony grunted and focused on the tablet in front of him. He’d had an idea about the integration of rudimentary A.I.s into experimental technologies, but the actual implementation gave him a headache. The call for a meeting had come at precisely the moment where he had contemplated tossing it all away and starting from scratch, and he’d gladly taken the opportunity for a break.

The thought that he was on to something wouldn’t leave him alone, and he turned it in his head while the other Avengers filed in. Bruce and Clint gave Steve curious looks, but Steve only shrugged. He knew as much as they did.

“Has to be Thor,” Clint muttered, and Tony found himself agreeing. Calling in an internal Avengers meeting wasn’t something Natasha was likely to do, and the rest of them were here. 

When Thor finally stepped into the kitchen, he was wearing full Asgardian regalia, his cape swishing behind him and Mjölnir dangling from his belt.

“Friends,” he began gravely, “Thank you for assembling.”

Tony and Steve exchanged an amused glance, and Tony even turned off his tablet, his full focus on Thor.

“I stand before you today to ask for...” Thor hesitated a split second before he continued. “...to ask you for your help.”

It had been months since the Battle of Manhattan, and the six Avengers had slowly but certainly gotten used to each other. After the original fight, they had separated, each of them going their own ways, but surprisingly, it had been Tony who had pulled them all back together, had offered them a home in his tower, and had helped them to adjust to a life of fame and paparazzi. It hadn’t been a smooth process, but they had prevailed, and by the time Fury had called and asked for their help with a new threat, they had worked smoothly together, their roles clearly defined and Steve’s leadership in the field undisputed.

During their time together, they had learned a lot about each other. Each of them knew that Steve was still suffering from nightmares, that Tony could go for days in the workshop if nobody pulled him out occasionally, and that Thor had the pride and the attitude of a king’s son.

Having him stand here before them and ask for their help was unusual, and they all realized it.

“What do you need our help with?” Natasha asked, and Thor pulled out the chair at the head of the table, the one Steve usually took, and slowly sat down.

“As it is,” he said, looking each of them in the eyes, “my son is, as I believe, in trouble.”

Silence fell over the kitchen. Finally, Clint coughed. “Your...son?” he repeated. “You didn’t tell us you have a kid, Thor.”

“Yeah,” Tony added, a funny expression on his face. “Does Jane know about this?”

Thor solemnly shook his head. “She does not,” he said, “for my son has not been born yet and will not for many years.”

Bruce frowned and wrapped both hands around a cup of herbal tea. “I’m afraid you’ll have to explain that, Thor,” he said softly. “How can your unborn son be in trouble?”

“And how do you know you have a son when he’s not born yet?” Tony tossed in.

Thor looked at them with a smile. “His name is Jim,” he said, the pride in his voice unmistakable. “He will be born centuries from now, far away from Earth.”

“And you know that already.” Tony stared at him in disbelief.

“I do, because for me, his birth is already in the past,” Thor agreed. “Asgardians do not move through time like mere mortals. And no, we cannot influence the past or the future beyond what we can do at this very moment.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Tony objected, but a nudge from a socked foot from Steve made him stop from going off on a tangent. 

“How is your son in trouble, Thor?” Steve asked.

“I believe someone is influencing his mind,” Thor explained. “To cause grave dissent and an intergalactical diplomatic incident. This must be prevented.”

“How?” Bruce asked. “I mean, we are here, now, and your son - Jim - he is in the future, and I don’t see how we can help, unless you have a time machine lying around somewhere.” He looked terribly hopeful about the prospect for a split second before he managed to get himself back under control.

“I do not, Bruce,” Thor said apologetically. “The Allfather shall bring us to the right moment in time, should you decide to accompany me.”

“This is crazy,” Tony murmured, but when Thor gave him a questioning look, he rolled his eyes. “Of course we’ll come with you, big guy.”

“Right,” Steve agreed. “We are a team.”

The others nodded, and Thor gave them a relieved and happy smile. “Thank you, friends,” he told them. “Your help is appreciated.”

~~

Arthur moved through the mingling people at the party with practiced ease. He was holding a glass of champagne in his hand, and his gun was a familiar weight by his side, concealed by his dark suit jacket. 

His hair was slicked back, and he looked every inch the successful businessman. 

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Ariadne, dressed in a glittering dress that probably cost more than what she could ever afford in the waking world. Her hair was twisted up into a complicated style, and she had the bored expression of the rich and powerful on her face.

This was her dream, an upscale party on top of a skyscraper in a far away town vaguely resembling Hong Kong. She had taken him and Eames here before, when they had planned their operation, and Arthur knew the layout of the level like the back of his hand. Too much hinged on their flawless performance since there were more than enough variables he couldn’t account for.

It made him nervous and twitchy.

He almost missed the entrance of Eames and their mark. Dressed in expensive suits, they stood shoulder by shoulder in front of the host, a projection with the name Xenia.

Arthur sidled closer to them to listen in to their introduction. 

“What brings you here?” the host asked when their mark bent over her hand with a flirty smile. “Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” the mark replied, his smile firmly in place, at the same time as Eames said, “Business.”

“A little bit of both,” the mark said with a quick glance in Eames’ direction. “I’m James T. Kirk.”

“What kind of business are you in?” the host asked. She looked as if she was one of Eames’ projections, Arthur thought idly.

“I’m a cruise ship captain,” Kirk replied. “Of a very large vessel. My friend Tuck here is a kick-ass travel agent.”

It was a good sign that Kirk apparently saw Eames as his best friend already, Arthur noted before frowning. _Tuck?_ Who had come up with that, he wondered briefly before pushing the thought aside.

It was time for the next step in their plan.

~~

Eames spotted Arthur from the corner of his eye and had to bite his lip to stop himself from making an inappropriate comment. Arthur looked dangerous in his perfectly-tailored suit and the hint of a weapon barely visible under his clothes. He was carrying a silver briefcase and he moved through the people with the sleek agility of a large predator.

“This mission is covert,” a voice murmured into his ear, and Eames quickly pushed away the glee and amusement he felt. Arthur had grumbled about the plan when they had come up with it at first, telling Eames he’d watched too many action movies, but in the end, he’d given in and they had gone for the scenario where both Kirk and Eames were CIA-agents. Inception was, after all, less about specificity and more about the emotion behind it.

Eames had kept a close eye on their mark since the second they had arrived in this dream, and seeing Kirk flirt with his projection so easily eased the worries he had had about the job. 

Kirk flirted as easily as he breathed. Making him get interested in one woman in particular had just gotten easier.

“He’s there,” Kirk murmured. He’d caught sight of Arthur as well, and Eames suppressed the excited shiver running down his spine. 

Having Arthur pretend to be a crime lord on this level was genius, he thought. Arthur could be ruthless and project it perfectly, and he could pull the attention of a dreamer or a projection just as easily as he could avoid it. He had an intimate knowledge of paradoxical architecture, allowing him to disappear and making the hunt exciting and ensure that it wouldn’t be over too quickly.

Arthur disappeared from their direct line of sight, and it felt only seconds later that shots were being fired. Eames felt adrenaline shoot through his blood stream, making everything seem sharper and more in focus. Next to him, James Kirk had tensed, and then, they were off, hurrying toward the source of the shots with no regard to their own safety - Kirk because his personality profile implied that he tended to put others’ lives above his own, and Eames because he knew the script of this particular dream.

Pandemonium exploded around them. Eames spared a second to worry about Ariadne. She was the dreamer, if she got hit by a stray bullet, the whole dream would collapse around them and their plan was bound to fail, but fortunately, the scenery around them stayed stable as he and Kirk apprehended Arthur on the helicopter landing platform.

There was a glint in Arthur’s eyes as he aimed his gun at them, but Eames knew him well enough that Arthur was missing him and Kirk on purpose, his bullets hitting close enough to make it appear as if it was sheer dumb luck that they escaped unharmed. Eames returned the favor, aiming at the projections around Arthur and non-lethal body parts, projecting each move enough to give Arthur time to escape.

He didn’t expect Arthur to turn around and attack him, and it happened so quickly he didn’t know who was more surprised to see him dangle by his fingertips off the building, Arthur or himself. Arthur was leaning over the edge of the building, his eyes wide and the gun still clutched in his hand, and Eames knew him well enough to realize that Arthur was thinking about reaching out for him and giving away the game.

Eames was sure he wouldn’t do it. Arthur was too much of a professional to slip up like this, and he knew that they were in a dream. Eames was safe, even if he slipped and fell to his death. 

He managed a small smile and a wink, and Arthur reacted as expected - he rolled his eyes at him and jumped over the edge of the building himself. The parachute billowed out under Eames, and he couldn’t help but let out a relieved sigh at the sight.

Arthur would be fine. He would rejoin him and Ariadne when they were ready to drop down to the next level, disguised as CIA-agent. In the meantime, Eames’ focus was supposed to be on James Kirk.

And on not dying.

Slowly, he began to pull himself back up onto the roof, where strong hands grabbed him and pulled him to safety. 

For a long moment, all Eames could focus on was the wild staccato of his heartbeat and the prickling of sweat under his expensive clothes, but slowly, he came back to awareness to find Kirk kneeling next to him, frantically brushing burning pieces of dollar bills off of his clothes. 

“Tuck? Tuck, Tuck, Tuck...” he was murmuring. “Are you okay?” 

Over the earpiece, Eames could hear voices screaming something about “covert mission”, but he didn’t care.

“I’m fine, mate,” he mumbled. He’d bitten the inside of his cheek, and the taste of blood clung thick and cloyingly to his tongue. “You think those girls will still be there?”

Kirk grinned at him and helped him back to his feet. “Let’s check.”

~~

Arthur quickly climbed into the car and exhaled shakily. “Everything okay?”

Ariadne nodded as the car sped off at high speed. “We’re fine,” she said. “We’ll meet with Eames at the checkpoint, to go down to the next level.”

Arthur nodded and let his head fall against the cool window. Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths.

The first step was taken. Eames had Kirk’s trust.

Now they needed to introduce the woman.

~~

Ariadne stayed behind in the lavish hotel room to watch over their sleeping bodies. If she was surprised by the way Eames laid down next to Arthur, their hands almost touching, she didn’t show it, her focus on slipping the needle into the vein at Kirk’s wrist.

“You ready for this?” Arthur asked quietly, and Eames gave him a wide grin. 

“I was born ready,” he replied confidently. “Don’t worry so much, Arthur.” 

Arthur’s lips twitched slightly, but he gave Ariadne the nod to put them under again, and the next moment, they found themselves in a video store in a city patterned after Los Angeles. 

Arthur needed only the blink of an eye to orient himself. This was his level, he was the dreamer, and he quickly noticed Kirk standing in front of the rows upon rows of movies, a puzzled frown on his face as he looked around as if he wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten here. 

For a split second, Arthur feared that Kirk had grown suspicious, that he knew he was in a dream, but then, Kirk shook his head slightly and reached for one of the cases.

This was the moment Eames had waited for.

The woman was gorgeous. Blonde and slender, she looked exactly like the photographs they had been given, and she reached for exact the same movie as Kirk at the same moment.

He turned away when they started to talk. Eames knew what he was doing, and Arthur didn’t want to listen too closely as he introduced himself and gave as good as he got.

They would make a striking pair, Arthur thought absent-mindedly, Kirk and the woman.

He was absolutely not jealous. This was just a job, and Eames was a professional. He wouldn’t do anything Arthur didn’t approve of, because they had planned this one very thoroughly and they were prepared for all possible scenarios.

Shaking his head, Arthur wished that he hadn’t been so stubborn about not involving Dom Cobb.

~~

The third level of the dream would be the trickiest, Eames thought quietly as he, still in the guise of the woman, kissed Kirk. Kirk’s hands were soft and relaxed where they were resting on his hips, and Eames couldn’t help but compare him to Arthur for a moment.

It was a habit he hadn’t been able to shake, but he also hadn’t tried very hard. He compared everybody he met to Arthur, and so far, nobody had been able to reach anywhere near that expectation.

Jim Kirk came close, though. He was smart and funny, he knew how to treat a lady, and he was a good enough person. Under different circumstances, Eames thought as he watched the tranquilizer dart hit Jim’s neck, they probably could have gotten along at least for a night of fun.

“Son of a...” Kirk grunted as he pulled the dart out. Eames watched as he quickly lost consciousness before he shook off the woman’s skin and went to open the door for Arthur.

“This is going to be intense,” Arthur murmured as he placed the PASIV on the coffee table and unwound the lines. 

“It’ll be fine. Relax, Arthur.” Eames gave him a smile. “His subconsciousness is going to form a projection of her, and I’m going to compete for her attention to make him realize he’s falling in love. We planned it. It’s perfectly fine.”

“I know.” Arthur glanced at Kirk’s sleeping body before centering himself. “I guess I’ll see you on the other side.”

Eames smiled, and then, he found himself in the middle of a whirlwind prank war with the goal of making Kirk fall in love with a woman he’d most likely never met.

He lost track of the time he spent on dates, posing for the cameras he knew Kirk had directed at him, and doing his best to make Kirk jealous.

It was working. He knew it was working, because they were in a dream and dreams didn’t always follow logical rules, and because Eames could read people very well and he could tell from every single line of Kirk’s body that he’d gotten attached to the woman. 

He gave the impression of a very lonely man, he thought, a man who had lost every kind of personal bond with the people around him. In a way, he reminded him of Robert Fisher and his need to be recognized by his father.

Eames didn’t know whose recognition James Kirk was looking for, but it was obvious to him that he had never gotten it. The way Kirk leaned against Eames side in a rare moment of peace between them and said, “You’re my friend, I love you” almost made him feel sorry for his mark.

Almost.

When Kirk didn’t plot how to win the woman’s heart, or how to keep Eames from doing the same, he was surprisingly easy to get along with. He had a nice smile, and he flirted with Eames as if it was second nature to him.

It made Eames miss Arthur a little bit, but this was a job and he would see it through. They all expected him to do so, especially Arthur. 

He wouldn’t be stuck in this dream level for much longer, that much was obvious to him from the way Kirk had upped his game. He, himself, had subtly started to pull back and had started to prepare the kick that would bring him back to the waking world.

Not much longer, he told himself as he watched Kirk’s date with the woman and the way he looked at her, as if she was not just a mere projection but a real person and the center of his universe.

As soon as the words _I love you_ came across Kirk’s lips, they could wake up, and as soon as Kirk would meet the woman, he would instantly recognize her as his dream woman. 

The job would be done and he and Arthur could go back to Paris together with Ariadne and just relax while they tried to figure out where they wanted to go from there. Maybe they could take a vacation together, just the two of them and no research about new jobs at all.

He couldn’t wait to suggest this to Arthur.

In the meantime, the screen in front of him showed Kirk and the woman kissing. Her hands were actually under his shirt, and one of his was buried in her hair, gently cradling her head. 

Kirk looked distracted, though, and Eames sighed. 

It was time for a final gambit - his projection of Arthur, cool and ruthless, would bring this charade to an end. He would drive Kirk to that final revelation - that he loved this woman.

~~

The final showdown was as thrilling as Eames could’ve made it, including car chases and a few elements taken straight out of an action movie. Arthur had scoffed when Eames had told him about the plan, but in the end, he’d relented and let Eames go through with it.

Getting thrown out of a burning car onto hard concrete hurt a lot, Eames thought as his body came to a stop. He was dizzy, his entire body ached, and just a few feet away from him, the car they had been in had broken through the rail alongside the bridge and had tumbled down to the ground far below them.

Black smoke was billowing up around him, making his eyes water, and it took him a long moment until he noticed Kirk and the woman.

It was unbelievable, he thought to himself, that they had pulled off this dream without ever giving her a name. It seemed wrong, somehow, but there was nothing to be done about it now. It was almost over, and he just waited for the music to swell up around them, marking the happy end of this dream like a blockbuster movie.

He didn’t expect Kirk to brush his lips against the woman’s cheek and then crawl over to where he was still lying.

“Tuck,” Kirk murmured, worry making lines appear around his eyes. “Tuck, are you okay?” Gentle hands ran across Eames’ shoulders, skimming the many bruises he could feel under the ripped fabric of his shirt and jacket.

“I’m fine,” Eames told him. The smoke scratched at the back of his throat and made him cough painfully. “Go back to your girl, mate.”

“Nah,” Kirk said carefully and gently pulled him into a sitting position, allowing Eames to lean against him for a moment. “She’s okay. Besides, you’re my friend, and I’m not leaving anyone behind, especially not my friends.”

Eames didn’t reply. He was too exhausted, and it would be only a few more minutes until they woke up and James Kirk would forget he’d ever met Eames.

As if on cue, the first notes of the musical countdown sounded out, and Eames straightened slightly.

The detonator for the explosive charge he’d set on this bridge was in his pocket, familiar enough to his searching fingers.

He wrapped one arm around Kirk and pulled him into a brief hug, as much apology for the deception as it was a safety measure to make sure they both fell off the bridge at the same time and get kicked back up to reality, as the music came to a swelling crescendo around him.

Eames took a deep breath and the world exploded around them.

~~

Traveling by Bifrost, Tony found out as he almost stumbled to his knees, was nothing like flying the Iron Man suit. His entire body felt as if he had been literally disintegrated and put back together and a few things were still settling in place.

Lifting a hand, he pressed it against the arc reactor in his chest, to make sure it was still where it had to be and that nothing had shaken loose during their memorable travel.

Behind him, he could hear a muttered curse from Clint and Natasha quietly catching her breath, and then, Thor laughed in that loud, exhilarated way he had, and pushed past them to greet the viking warrior with the sword, giving his teammates a brief moment to look around and get to their bearings.

It was obvious that they weren’t on Earth anymore, Tony thought. Next to him, Steve whispered “Not in Kansas anymore,” and he had to hide the grin that threatened to break through. Not surprisingly, they both had thought along the same lines.

For a split second, he wondered if this was even weirder for Steve, or if his long beauty sleep had prepared him for the alienness that was Asgard, but then, his attention was pulled back to his surroundings themselves.

Asgard _gleamed_. There was no other word for it. Every building seemed to be made of marble and gold. It gave the impression of being very, very old, and there wasn’t a single piece of technology to be seen. Not even the room they had arrived in held a computer, and Tony’s fingers itched to find out how the Bifrost worked.

He had a bet with Doctor Foster on it.

“There will be a feast in our honor,” Thor announced and wrapped one of his arms around Steve’s shoulders, pulling him along and down a long, winding path. “You are my guests. Come, meet my father and my mother.”

Steve glanced over his shoulder, to make sure the rest of the Avengers followed, but he didn’t protest and let Thor’s excited voice wash over him as he pointed out places that had a special meaning for him.

The Asgardians had the same Shakespearian charme as Thor had. Every one of them had come to the feast with their arms and their armor close by, and Tony almost felt naked next to them. He kept the suit armor close, but he refused to put it on - eating and drinking was so much easier without the metal of the suit surrounding him. From the way Barton had grown still and distant next to him, Tony figured that Clint felt the same, and he made a quick mental note to upgrade his uniform and enhance it. StarkIndustries was in the process of developing a new form of kevlar anyways, a better form, and he didn’t know anyone who could use it better than his teammates, Natasha, Steve and Clint.

Thor had introduced them to his parents and to the Warriors Three, and a quick glance down the long table confirmed that Thor chose his friends wisely. The Warriors plus Sif got along great with the Avengers.

His attention was briefly pulled away at the entry of yet another goddess - “Freya,” Thor murmured, loud enough for the entire table to hear. “The ruler of Fólkvangr. She is a rare guest in this realm. I am surprised to see her among us.”

She looked like a movie star, Tony thought, her hair blonde and falling freely down her back, her face arranged in an expression of haughty boredom. He was too far away to see her eye color, and something about the cloak she wore was unusual and distracted him.

“Thor,” Clint, who had better eyes, murmured while leaning closer. “Is she wearing a cloak made of feathers?”

“She is,” Thor confirmed and took a big sip of his drink. “It is invoked in matters of fertility and love.”

Tony shook his head and settled deeper in his chair to watch as Freya moved closer, to greet Odin. He didn’t miss the smile the Allfather gave the goddess, and it made him grin. Apparently it didn’t matter what planet they were on, some things were universally the same, such as the attraction of young, blonde women on older men.

“And that,” Thor murmured as the doors were pushed open and another group of people walked in, “That is Captain James Tiberius Kirk.” He had grown still and tense next to him, and Tony put his cup down and pulled his attention away from Freya and to the new arrivals.

“That is your son?” Steve asked, sounding surprised. He was seated at Tony’s other side, probably on purpose to keep him from wandering away, and of course he’d heard every single word of their conversation. “Didn’t you say he’ll be born in the future? He looks like a grown man to me.”

“Yes, he is.” Thor bent his head. “Time moves differently on Asgard than on Earth.” He hesitated briefly before continuing. “He is not aware I am his father,” he then admitted, and this time, his voice was quiet enough not to carry but was almost swallowed by the sound of celebrating around them. “He believes his father to have died on the day of his birth, saving his life and that of many others.”

“Did you? I mean, will you?” Steve asked, and Thor smiled grimly.

“My mortal form will,” he confirmed. “But fear not, friend Steve, it is not permanent.”

Tony shook his head and continued to watch Thor’s kid.

James Tiberius Kirk carried himself with the self-confidence Tony saw in the mirror every time when he prepared for a board meeting. He seemed to be cocky, but there was something that told Tony James Kirk could back it up when necessary and was not afraid of doing so.

He wore some sort of uniform, the shirt a bright gold and the pants black. Behind him, two men in similar attire followed, although their shirts were blue. One of them looked normal enough, but the other one’s face was definitely alien; more alien than the Asgardians. It took Tony a moment to realize what it was: his eyebrows and ears were shaped different than a human’s, and there was no emotion at all visible on his face. He wasn’t smiling, like James Kirk, and he didn’t have the proud set of Kirk’s shoulders or the air of slight discomfort their other companion showed.

Kirk had definitely inherited his father’s blond hair and his bright eye color, but it didn’t look like he possessed the physique of an Asgardian. He was fit, but he was only human, as far as Tony could tell.

He didn’t know if that knowledge disturbed him or made him feel relief, and he didn’t examine his emotions about Thor’s kids too closely.

It was none of his concern.

At least, not yet.

~~

“Looks like we came just at the right time,” Jim said with a small grin over his shoulder. Spock simply raised an eyebrow, and Bones grumbled darkly about having more important things to do than babysit him, but the lack of returning grins didn’t put a dampener on Jim’s mood.

The past few weeks had been anything but easy. The _Enterprise_ had patrolled the border to the Romulan Empire, a tedious job that left them all short-tempered and twitchy. In addition to that, Jim had been plagued by strange dreams he couldn’t explain.

This, he thought, was exactly what the crew needed: an easy, uncomplicated diplomatic mission to a planet that had been loosely affiliated with the Federation since its beginnings but preferred to stay independent and isolated.

The databases didn’t have a lot of information about Asgard. It was structured like an aristocracy, and at the head of the government stood a king with the title Allfather. The current Allfather was a man named Odin. Records didn’t indicate how old he was or since when he’d been the ruler of Asgard.

Asgard was equipped with a way to travel throughout the galaxy, and yet, nobody had ever seen an Asgardian space ship. And yet, there was no doubt that they had been on several planets and had left their influence and their culture on them. The Asgardians guarded their secrets fiercely, and so far, nobody had managed to find out how this race that appeared so archaic on first glance had managed to develop its influence and hold it for millennia.

They arrived in the middle of a rambunctious party. The tables were laden with food, and the wine seemed to be flowing freely, if the singing and laughing was an indicator.

Jim smiled a little wider as he and his crewmembers were led toward the high table and introduced to Odin Allfather and his wife. 

It was obvious that diplomatic talks had to wait until the party was over. Even if Odin had wanted to get down to business immediately, there was no way he would be able to leave, and Jim gracefully accepted the invitation to stay and celebrate with them. 

There would be time for talks the next day.

The Asgardians at one of the tables made room for them, and even before they were sitting, cups with wine and ale were put down in front of them and the men around them prompted them to drink. 

“Cheers,” Jim said and lifted his cup. 

The wine was sweet, seasoned with alien spices, and Jim made a mental note to take it slow. The sweetness was misleading, he knew, and he most likely wouldn’t even notice if he got drunk. 

He had his orders. Causing an intergalactic incident were not part of them, and Jim was determined to show Starfleet Command, to show Admiral Pike, that they hadn’t made a mistake when they had given him command of the _Enterprise_.

Bones gave him a careful look over the rim of his own cup, and Jim pretended not to notice. Bones knew him too well, and even without Jim telling him about the strange dreams and the feeling of restlessness that had settled over him, he knew that Bones had noticed something.

Jim exhaled quietly. There was nothing to be done about Bones’ watchfulness. It was just something he would have to live with. Right now, he had to focus on the good relationship with the Asgardians he hoped to achieve. Everything else had to wait.

Unobtrusively, he looked around, taking in the atmosphere of the great hall and the celebrating warriors around them. Not all of them were Asgardians, he quickly realized. There were members of a few other species as well, dwarves and Andorians and at one table, he spotted a group of people that looked almost Asgardians, but didn’t wear traditional Asgardian chain mail and weaponry. 

He almost immediately dismissed them from his mind when his gaze settled on the woman seated a few chairs away from Odin Allfather.

She looked bored as she played with her cup while pretending to listen to the dwarf to her left who was eagerly telling her about something, his hands sweeping through the air and forming shapes she barely paid attention to. Her hair was like spun gold, flowing down her back, her lips turned into a slight pout, and there was something about her that called to Jim.

He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but something about her was familiar, as if he’d known her for quite a while now. It was the same feeling he got when he unexpectedly spotted Bones in a group of people somewhere, the comfortable warm feeling of affection and love.

A part of him insisted that he’d never seen this woman before, but he dismissed it, overwhelmed by his emotions. 

He’d been together with so many women, especially before he’d earned the rank of Captain, and the feeling deja vu was growing stronger.

It was as if she’d read his thoughts, or felt the heat of his stare, because suddenly, she turned away from the dwarf next to her and looked straight at him.

He knew this woman. He knew this look. He’d seen her before, he just didn’t know where.

“Jim?” Bones asked when he put down his cup. “What is going on?”

“Nothing,” Jim hastily promised. “Everything’s fine, I promise, Bones. Relax.”

“Relax,” Bones snorted. “Where are you going?”

Jim put on his best and most seductive smile. “I’m going to introduce myself to the nice young lady over there,” he said.

“Who, the one with the ten eyes or the one with the bird cape?” Bones asked, his gaze following Jim’s.

“The cape,” Jim replied and placed both hands on the table, to push himself to his feet. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Bones glanced over to Spock, but Jim’s first officer was distracted by a discussion about traditional Vulcan weaponry with the heavyset Asgardian next to him and didn’t seem to pay attention to them. The impression was wrong, Jim knew. Spock was always aware where the members of his team were and what they were doing, especially when they were this close to him. He just chose not to get involved into their bickering.

“Relax,” he repeated firmly and stood. “We’re supposed to make diplomatic chit-chat. That’s all I’m going to do.”

The expression on Bones’ face told Jim his friend was not convinced, but he didn’t pay attention to it. 

He had to talk to the woman. The urge became almost overwhelming, and the way over to where she was sitting seemed to stretch out into eternity.

It wasn’t something he was used to. Under normal circumstances, he was charming and attentive, and people couldn’t help but feel attracted to him without him having to put in much of an effort. 

This, he knew, this would be different. It would be a challenge, and she would give as good as she got, and she would not back down just because he was George Kirk’s son or the youngest captain of Starfleet.

He needed to do more to impress her.

He didn’t know why he knew all that, but he did, and when he sauntered up to where she was sitting and introduced himself with a smile and a kiss to the back of her hand, it was all he could think of.

~~

“Uh...Thor?” Bruce said softly. “I think the intergalactic incident you were trying to prevent is just about to happen.”

Nobody paid much attention to a scientist in these halls, especially not one as inconspicuous as Bruce was. Thor had told a few tales about the Hulk earlier, and Bruce had had to politely decline requests to let the Other Guy out. The unwanted attention had quickly shifted to Steve and Tony, and to Natasha, and the three of them had done the best to keep it, with amusing stories of their heroics or quick and skilful misdirections. 

It had allowed both Clint and Bruce to stay in the background and keep a watchful eye on the high table and on Thor’s kid.

Clint had shifted in his seat when Kirk had gone to sit with Freya, sensing trouble and reaching for his bow, but Bruce for his part had hoped that it was just the proximity of the Tesseract and the knowledge that Loki was somewhere close by that had pushed Clint’s paranoia into overdrive.

It didn’t seem as if they were that lucky, he concluded as he saw the thunderous expression on Odin’s face and the whitened knuckles around the spear he was carrying. Odin’s attention was focused completely on Kirk and Freya, the curve of her throat as she tossed her head back and laughed, the glint in her eyes as she caressed Kirk with her gaze. 

Odin was jealous, Bruce concluded after a while, jealous of the way Freya seemed to enjoy Kirk’s presence and his careful attendance to her. He refilled her cup and offered her food from his own plate, not noticing the steadily darkening expression on Odin’s face.

As Bruce watched, Kirk leaned in to murmur something into Freya’s ear, his lips brushing her cheek. 

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Enough!”

Odin’s voice echoed through the hall as he jumped to his feet and lifted the spear in one single fluid motion full of strength. The celebration abruptly ground to a halt, and the entire room fell into stunned, deathly silence.

Kirk squared his shoulders, but there was nothing he could do to protect himself from the spear aiming at his chest. He was unarmed, and his uniform shirt didn’t look like it would even slow down the descent of the spear.

“Halt!” It was Thor who’d dared to interrupt the silence, Thor who had jumped to his son’s defense, naked fear in his eyes as he stretched his hand out, as if he wanted to stop the spear this way. Clint and Steve were right behind him, cold fury in their eyes, and a look at Tony, who was shaking with barely suppressed rage brought the memory of Agent Coulson back to the forefront of Bruce’s mind.

He hadn’t known Coulson, had only met him briefly as they’d crossed paths on the bridge of the Helicarrier, but he’d seen the footage of Loki’s spear going through Coulson’s chest like a knife went through butter. He knew that Tony had held Coulson in high regard, and so had Steve.

“Well,” Tony whispered, more to himself than to anyone else, “at least we now know Loki comes by it honestly.”

Natasha gave him a dark look, but she moved into Steve’s chair and remained close to Tony while Thor caught his father’s spear right before it made contact with Kirk’s chest.

“Halt,” he repeated, “I beg you, father!”

~~

If he was quite honest with himself, Dr. Leonard McCoy had seen the evening ending in disaster the second Jim had moved away from him and Spock to flirt with that woman.

White-knuckled, he’d watched his friend from a distance, unable to interrupt and unwilling to look away.

Something had been off about Jim the past few weeks, since they’d gotten the orders to patrol the Neutral Zone that separated the Federation from the Romulan Empire. Jim had been short-tempered, snappish, and withdrawn from him and Spock. The teasing of the Vulcan had gone down to a minimum, and even then, it looked as if Jim was only doing it to keep up appearances, not because his heart was in it.

And then, Odin Allfather had sprung to his feet with a lot more agility than Bones had suspected he had in him, and had aimed his goddamned spear right at Jim’s chest, and although a spear was a barbaric and archaic weapon, Bones knew all too well how much damage it could do and that it was almost impossible for him to save Jim’s life if he really got impaled on that thing here.

“Spock,” he hissed, wordlessly begging the First Officer to do something, to save the Captain, but before either of them could do as much as get to their feet, one of the Asgardians at the table closest to where Jim was sitting now had jumped between the spear and Kirk, as if he wanted to stop it with his bare hands.

“Halt!” The Asgardian bellowed, and even Bones knew that this was an act of rebellion that would likely get punished by Odin Allfather. He was the sole ruler of this planet, and reports indicated that he didn’t show mercy to people who dared to go up against him.

Two humanoids had jumped to their feet as well, and although they looked decidedly un-Asgardian, they both carried the same kind of archaic weapons. One of them held a round shield, the other one was armed with a bow.

Bones’ fingers itched for a laser scalpel or a phaser, but of course he carried neither.

The tension in the hall grew thicker and thicker as Odin directed his one-eyed stare at the Asgardian who had dared to step between him and Jim.

“Thor,” he said, his voice dark, “How dare you!”

Bones willed Jim to move, to turn and leave, or at least put a little distance between himself and the woman. He was betting the woman was Odin Allfather’s daughter or niece or something and that Jim had managed to piss the king off with his flirting. It wasn’t the first time that had happened. During their days at the academy, Jim had pulled the same stunt with the daughter of an Admiral and had barely managed to escape unscathed.

“Father, I beg you,” Thor said, his clear voice carrying across the hall easily enough. “This man has done nothing wrong, and he bears no ill will toward the fair Lady Freya.”

“Excuse me, sir, I don’t think...” Jim started, but neither Thor nor Odin paid attention to him.

“This man has taken my hospitality and is disrespecting me within my own house,” Odin pointed out, his voice thundering across the hall. “Why should I spare his life?”

Bones’ breath caught in his throat, and Spock gave him a long look that told him to prepare to run for his life while Spock would get Jim. 

“For me, father.” Thor was still pleading with his father, and Spock started to move on silent, quick feet, to get close to Jim.

Human strength could never hold up to that of an Asgardian, but a Vulcan, Bones knew, might have a chance. In addition to being strong enough to carry Jim if necessary, Spock was a damn computer, able to analyse an opponent’s moves and counter them without even breaking a sweat.

“Tell me, Thor, what is your interest in this creature?” Derision dripped from Odin’s voice, and Bones watched as both Jim and Thor straightened and squared their shoulders. He felt queasy, sick to his stomach about the prospect of losing Jim during a diplomatic mission of all things, and it added to the feeling of helplessness that threatened to paralyze him.

During an emergency, when there were injured people to take care of, Bones was the epitome of control. He knew exactly what to do, and he never hesitated to do what had to be done. But this was so far out of his comfort zone he didn’t even know which way to turn. 

“All I ask of you is a chance to prove to you, Father, that this man meant no harm and carries no ill will toward Asgard and its people,” Thor said, a pleading note to his voice. “Let me prove this to you.”

“And you know the intention of this mortal?” Odin boomed out loud enough to make several people in the hall flinch.

Not Thor. He stood tall and proud, his head unbowed, as he said, “I do, Father, for this man is my son.”

After that, chaos broke out, and Bones managed to break his paralysis for long enough to fight his way to Jim’s side.

If Odin was surprised by Thor’s announcement, Jim seemed shocked to the point of irrational anger. It was something that didn’t seem possible, but Bones knew his friend well enough to know how he would react to the news. Spock, who appeared on Jim’s other side, appearing cool and unaffected, knew as well, and while he didn’t reach out for Jim, he stood close enough to offer support and protection when needed.

~~

“You, sir, are _not_ my father.”

Jim’s voice was firm and unwavering, and Thor’s heart broke a little in his chest at the stubborn expression in his son’s face. Jim had that from his mother, and in this moment, he reminded Thor of the woman he’d fallen in love with - the woman he would fall in love with many years in the future, when Odin would banish him from Asgard for a second time because he couldn’t stand Thor’s moping anymore.

He ached to reach out for the man his son had become, a son he’d not seen grown up, never had held in his arms as a babe. A son he’d last encountered in the belly of his mother, kicking cheerfully at Thor’s hands which had been carefully wrapped around Winona’s middle. At the same time, he knew that such a gesture would go unappreciated, would even be considered an attack.

He did not wish to alienate his son more than he already had. The rift between them seemed unbreachable, and Thor found himself overwhelmed by a wave of grief and regret.

He’d never wanted to leave his family behind, but he had done what he needed to, to make sure they were safe from Nero.

“Jim...” Dr. McCoy said in a low, warning tone, but Jim didn’t pay attention to his friend. His eyes bore into Thor’s, his posture remained stiff and unwelcoming.

“My father,” he said, his voice growing louder, “was a hero who died protecting his crew, not a coward.”

Thor flinched at the insult, but he remained silent and passive, no matter how much he wanted to protest and explain himself to his son.

His son, whose words pierced Thor’s heart like his brother’s daggers had pierced his flesh during their last fight.

“I neither want, nor need, your help in this matter,” Jim spat now, and Thor could see him seething under the thin veneer of calm, could see how much he was struggling to keep himself under control. “Good day.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and left the chamber they had fled to after Odin had graciously allowed Thor to remove Jim from the great hall and his presence.

“That went well,” Tony said quietly. He was sitting at the long wooden table, together with the rest of the Avengers and Jim’s companions, and slowly sipped from a cup of wine.

“As well as it could be expected,” McCoy grumbled, his shoulders slumped slightly. 

Tony shrugged. “Better than expected,” he insisted. “Nobody died or got impaled. In my book, that’s good.” He stood and made a show of stretching slowly. Thor saw that he’d rigged some pieces of his Iron Man suit to his attire, wearing the gloves. He could see thick cables lead from his wrists to his chest, hidden by the fine material of his shirt but still not invisible. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked him, and Tony grimaced and nodded toward the same exit Jim had taken.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t go back into the lion’s cave,” he explained with a reassuring grin in McCoy’s direction. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to him.”

McCoy seemed for a moment as if he wanted to protest, but a look from Spock made him settle down. He did so with a deep frown on his face, but he accepted the cup of herbal tea Bruce handed him and even managed to thank him.

Thor sighed heavily. 

The task set before him was getting more and more difficult with every turn and twist it took.

~~

“Hey.” Tony leaned against the wall and carefully arranged his hands. He’d made the decision to fashion himself removable gauntlets for the suit, and considering what had happened in the great hall, he was glad he had done so, even if it prevented him from pushing his hands into the pockets of his pants now.

James Kirk didn’t turn around. “If you’re here to convince me to let him help me, you can save your breath,” he said bitterly.

Tony shrugged. “Actually, I’m not here to convince you to do anything. I let your buddies do that - they know you better, they know where to pry. Although, I guess if we talk a little, I could get a pretty good idea.”

Jim snorted. “What are you doing here, then? Telling me what a good guy _Thor_ is?”

“Would you believe me?” Tony asked him and settled a little more comfortably against the wall. “Because I’m guessing no.”

“Probably not,” Jim admitted before sighing. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

“Look, I’m the last person to tell you how to get along with your dad, although Thor really is a cool guy once you got used to him and his...Asgardian-ness.” He shrugged. “I’m just here to keep you away from your grandpa until the others have decided how to convince you to agree to let us help you.”

“Why would you want to help me? You don’t even know me.”

“True,” Tony admitted. “But Thor asked us for help, and the big guy rarely does so. I mean, not when it’s really important. Small things, like explaining the microwave, yes, but the big things, the important stuff? No.”

“He doesn’t know me either.”

“Maybe not.” Tony fell silent. He didn’t know what he could tell Jim Kirk to make him accept the help they were offering, because every single argument he could think of reminded him of his own father.

He had told Kirk the Avengers would help him because Thor was their friend, but it only reminded him that Obadiah had been Howard’s friend, as well, and suddenly, that particular argument lost all of its appeal and power and left a taste of ash and despair in his mouth.

“I certainly understand being angry at your father,” he said instead. “I didn’t have the best relationship with mine, either. The happiest day of his life was when he shipped me off to boarding school.”

“At least he was there,” Jim pointed out.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Not really. Plus, Thor had a damn good reason, being technically dead and stuff.” 

“But he’s not dead.” 

“Yeah, that’s confusing.” Tony shrugged. “He’s not a bad guy. Now, your uncle Loki on the other hand...you better keep away from him.” He shuddered.

“Thanks,” Jim said dryly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He sighed. “I did fine without him, you know?” he said then. “I don’t need him now.”

“Maybe not,” Tony agreed. “But why risk getting turned into a shashlik if cooperating with us can possibly prevent it? You don’t need to invite him to every Thanksgiving and Christmas after that, you know. If you tell the big guy you need space, he’ll give it to you. He’s like a puppy, he’d do anything for you, I guess.”

With that, he fell silent again, giving Jim time to think, but he made sure they weren’t disturbed by anyone.

“I guess it would’ve been nice, having him around while growing up,” Jim said after a long moment.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed quietly, thinking about his own father. “It would.” He tilted his head to the side. “He loves you. You have that, at least.”

A shuffle of feet made both of them look up, just in time to see McCoy roll his eyes and mutter “Unbelievable.”

“Fascinating, indeed,” Spock added as he took a step into the room, pushing past McCoy. “Captain, I assume you are not averse to some support in this situation.”

Jim sighed and fell down onto a wooden bench. 

“Damn you, you stubborn...” McCoy stopped himself and took a deep breath. “Listen to me, kid,” he said as he marched over to the table and sat down next to his friend. “I’m not leaving you on this planet, you hear me? If that means you have to get over yourself, you will, even if I have to drag you, kicking and screaming.”

“The good doctor has a point,” Spock added quietly, and Tony bit his lip to hold his grin back and left.

This, he felt, was between the three of them. 

~~

Sandwiched between Spock and McCoy and soaking in their body heat, Jim felt protected and mellow in a way he hadn’t for long weeks. He suddenly and acutely became aware of the tension that had accumulated across his shoulders and back, and for a brief moment, all he wanted to do was to lean against Bones’ shoulder and close his eyes.

“Jim,” Bones continued, his voice gruff and pleading. “If not for yourself, for me. For us. Please. Let the guy help you.”

“I would very much agree to the good Doctor’s plan,” Spock added, and Jim felt a warm, familiar hand briefly touch the small of his back.

It was the touch that made him slump and give in, despite the fact that he knew it had been calculated in order to make him compliant with their wishes. They knew about this weakness, and they rarely took advantage of it, and when they did, he was defenseless against it.

“Okay, okay,” he grumbled. “Tell them they can do whatever they want. But I’m not talking to him about his ridiculous claims.”

He didn’t see it, but he was very sure Bones was rolling his eyes.

~~

“Okay.” Bruce leaned his hip against the heavy wooden table and crossed his arms over his chest. “That doesn’t make sense. How can your son be here when he’s not born yet?”

“Don’t try to understand,” Tony called out from the door. “You’ll only get your brain knotted up.”

Bruce frowned, but he didn’t look away from Thor, who looked back at him helplessly. “I do not know how to explain it,” he admitted. “The power my father possesses is not easily understood.”

“I’d say,” Tony pointed out as he pushed off the doorjamb and moved into the room. “If you ask me, he’s somehow capable of bending space, time, and the laws of physics, improbable as it seems to be for us mere mortals.”

“The really interesting question is, can we cause any damage to the space-time-continuum if we agree to help out here?” Bruce mused, tapping his fingers thoughtfully against his chin.

“The grandfather paradox?” Tony asked and frowned. “We should be safe, I think, especially if we are meant to help him.”

“I don’t know how comfortable I am with the idea of a deterministic future,” Bruce muttered. “No free will.”

“Just the illusion.” Tony grimaced. “Not my favourite line of thinking either.”

Thor gave both of them a confused look. “What are you talking about, friends?” he asked. “Your lives are free. Your will is free. My father has a lot of power, but not that much.” He looked away, a shadow quickly crossing over his face. “Do you not think he would have prevented Loki from growing so angry at his family?”

“Not if it’s deterministic and not even Odin can influence it.”

“What’s the use in worrying about it?” Steve asked from his spot at the table. “If it is deterministic, then there is nothing we can do.” He straightened. “I think the really interesting question is, how are we going to help Thor’s kid? If he comes around.”

“I know that he has been influenced to act in this way,” Thor insisted darkly. 

“How do you prove that?” Clint tossed in. “I mean, you can’t go into his head and pull out the truth.” His fingers clenched against the edge of the table.

The Avengers fell silent as they thought the problem through.

“Actually,” Bruce said after a long moment, his voice carefully soft, “there might be a way to go into his head and pull out the truth.” He fidgeted slightly and took off his glasses to rub them against the hem of his shirt. 

“No.” Clint’s voice was hard and gave no room for arguments. “We don’t do that.”

“I’m not suggesting we use the scepter.” Bruce shook his head. “There’s another way.” He slipped his glasses back on and turned to look directly at Clint. “It’s called extraction.”

Natasha leaned slightly into Clint. “That could work, theoretically,” she mused. “It’s just illegal, and there is no way we could get a PASIV out here.”

“Not to mention that you probably won’t get access to one in the first place,” Clint muttered defiantly. His shoulders were still tense under his jacket, but he didn’t look as if he wanted to bolt at any second.

“Wait, a what?” Steve asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Extraction.” Natasha tilted her head to the side. “Shared dreaming. To go into a person’s dreams, their subconsciousness, and find information hidden there.”

Steve blinked. “I shouldn’t be surprised that’s possible,” he said slowly.

“It is illegal,” Clint repeated. “And there is no way to get access to a PASIV, or a skilled extractor - not that you couldn’t do the job, Tash. It would still be better to let a professional do this. I’ve seen you work.”

Natasha smiled faintly at that, but she nodded. “I agree with Clint,” she said. “Finding someone is next to impossible, unless you know where to look. And I’m sure we can find and follow a few leads, but there is no guarantee something will turn up quick enough to help Kirk.”

“What if you have a few very concrete leads?” Bruce asked. His voice was still quiet and controlled, but Natasha still narrowed her eyes at him.

“We still would need to go back to Earth to check them out,” Clint said. “And no matter how concrete these leads are, those guys are professionals. It’s hard to pin them down. You don’t want to know how long Coulson tried to get to Cobb before...” He trailed off. “It’s hard to find them, and harder to get them to agree to work with SHIELD.”

“What is a PASIV?” Steve asked, and Natasha and Clint exchanged a brief glance. Before either of them could start to explain, Bruce started to talk.

“The PASIV device is used to administer the drug Somnacin to the dreamers,” he explained. “To enable shared and lucid dreaming.”

Steve turned toward Tony. “Can you build it?”

Tony gave a short and unamused laugh. “Sure, if I know what I’m doing.” He shook his head. “Not like this.”

“Fine.” Steve turned toward Natasha and Clint. “How quickly can you track down one of these?”

She shrugged. “Hard to say,” she admitted. “With SHIELD’s help? Maybe as quick as in four, five weeks.”

“That is too long,” Thor protested. “We need this device now.”

Natasha shrugged. There was nothing she could say or do to speed the process up, no matter how much she wanted to.

Bruce coughed politely. “I may be able to help out with that,” he said. “I know someone who probably knows someone.”

Clint frowned. “How?” 

“Um...” Bruce glanced down, at the tips of his shoes. “I had a few times when I took some side jobs, mixing compounds for dreaming, when I needed money, quick.” He ran a hand through his curls. “If I can go back to Earth, Thor, I can make a few calls and probably get us a PASIV, or at least a lead.”

Steve nodded. “Do that,” he decided. “Natasha, Clint, you go with him. Try to be back as quickly as possible. Thor, can you talk to Heimdall, make sure they get there and back in one piece?”

“Certainly.” Thor jumped to his feet. “I shall speak to him immediately.”

~~

“The Captain gladly accepts your help in this matter.” It was Spock who returned to the main chamber to deliver the message to the assembled Avengers. He didn’t show a single emotion, unlike Thor, whose emotions were written plainly across his face. The contrast was, Tony thought from his spot in the corner, fascinating. Both men were utterly alien, but at least Spock looked the part, with his eyebrows and his pointed ears and his stoic behavior.

“Glad to hear that,” Steve replied when Thor could only nod silently. “We’re glad he decided this way.”

Spock tilted his head toward Steve in acknowledgement. “However, he requests that Mr. Odinson does not press the issue of their relationship.”

Steve stood and wrapped his hand around Thor’s elbow. “Mr. Odinson takes his...kinship with your Captain very seriously,” he pointed out. Tony noticed how Steve’s pattern of speech became more formal as he talked to the alien, and it made him grin in amusement. “But we will do our best to avoid making Captain Kirk uncomfortable in our presence.”

“Aye,” Thor agreed slowly. “If that is what he wishes, it shall be so.”

Spock again gave a brief tilt of his head. “Your cooperation in the matter is appreciated,” he said. “The Captain inquires as to what your further plans are.”

“Maybe the Captain should come in so we can plan properly?” Tony spoke up. “It’s his ass that’s on the line, after all.”

Spock raised a silent eyebrow, and Tony copied him, trying and failing to feel judged by him.

“Tony’s right,” Steve hastily said. “We all should sit down together and find a way out of this mess.”

Spock nodded. “Very well,” he decided. “We will...sit down together and find a solution to this situation.”

~~

Travelling via Bifrost, Bruce thought, was approximately how he imagined being picked up by a hurricane must feel.

It rattled him to his bones, Hulk close to the surface and ready to come out at the slightest provocation. His shirt clung damply to his skin, and he shivered slightly in the cool night air as he took a moment to orient himself.

He was standing in the middle of what he recognized as the landing circle of the Bifrost, the intricate patterns scorched into dry desert ground.

“New Mexico,” Clint murmured behind Bruce, disgust audible in his voice. “What is it with these guys and New Mexico, every single time?”

Bruce didn’t pay much attention to his muttering. He was still trying to soothe Hulk, knowing all too well that there wasn’t any time to waste on him losing control.

It seemed ironic, he thought randomly, that they didn’t have time when the very concept of time seemed so malleable to the Asgardians. Bruce still had trouble wrapping his mind around everything he’d observed and experienced while in Odin’s Hall, but right now was not the time to try and figure it out.

He looked up with new determination and realized that Clint had come much closer to him while Natasha hadn’t moved much but had angled her body away from him. It was their way of closing rank around him when they realized he was struggling with Hulk, and he felt a wave of affection run through him. It did wonders to subdue Hulk.

“You good?” Clint asked him quietly, and Bruce managed a small, tired smile.

“I’m fine,” he replied. “Good enough to do this.” He rubbed his hands together and took a deep, cleansing breath.

The truth was that he wasn’t _good_. He was constantly struggling, not just with Hulk but with himself as well. It left him feel bitter and angry and made living with Hulk even more complicated.

There were things in his past, things he’d done, that he wasn’t proud of and that he would change or fix in a heartbeat if he just had the chance; things he’d learned to live with because there wasn’t any way to fix them anymore.

His brief stint in the world of chemists and mental espionage was one thing he wasn’t proud of. He had been on the run, and he had needed money. The only two options he’d seen at that time had been either to turn to prostitution or to crime, and since Hulk pretty much eliminated the first option, crime had been the only solution he’d seen.

Stumbling onto dreamsharing had been an accident, and in hindsight, it was almost impossible for him to recount how exactly it had happened. 

Since Bruce usually didn’t remember much of what happened when he hulked out, he had had to get used to big holes in his memories, and he was usually good at not letting it faze him anymore. What he remembered was waking up in the backroom of a little, cluttered office somewhere in Asia, the backroom of a dreamsharing den. The owner of the establishment, an old, bowed man with silvery hair, had slowly and patiently nursed him back to health and had introduced him to dreamsharing and the various somnacin-compounds he was cooking up.

Bruce had started to get involved only gradually, out of curiosity and a sense of obligation, but by the time General Ross had caught up with him and Bruce had had to leave, he’d met several of the extractors and had managed to develop a new compound as well.

It was one of those extractors he needed to contact now, and he had no idea how to do that.

“Bruce?” Natasha asked, her low voice cutting through his thoughts and quickly bringing him back from his memories. 

“Yeah, I’m good.” He took another deep breath. “I have a few names I think we need to check out.”

Natasha grinned, her teeth a bright gleam in the darkness, and held up her cell phone. “SHIELD’s databases are at our disposal.”

~~

From there on, Bruce was swept up in a whirlwind of activity as SHIELD’s resources tracked down the extractor whose name he remembered, and Bruce got a phone number from him that led him to Japan, then to Kenya, and finally to London, England.

Either Clint or Natasha was always by his side, a steady, quiet presence that helped him keep control of Hulk as he chased down a man he hadn’t seen in a lot of years, maybe even a decade.

“I don’t even know if I would recognize him when I see him,” he muttered, and Clint gave a brief chuckle and brushed his elbow against Bruce’s. 

“Relax, you’re gonna be fine,” he replied, and Bruce found himself, against all odds, actually relaxing slightly.

“Let’s do this,” Clint decided, and Bruce pushed the doors to the little cafe open with slightly more force than necessary.

He’d met the man he was about to meet only once, briefly, when he’d come into the chemist’s shop together with the extractor, but to his relief, when he looked around the room, his eyes were drawn to the table in the corner.

The man sitting there was dressed in a suit, his dark hair was carefully slicked back, and he seemed focused on the newspaper he was holding. A cup of coffee was cooling next to his elbow. 

Bruce stepped up and coughed politely. Sharp eyes flickered up, but Bruce knew immediately that he’d been seen the second he stepped into the cafe.

“Arthur,” he greeted politely, and Arthur put down the newspaper and nodded toward the chair opposite him.

“Bruce,” he replied. “Imagine my surprise when Cobb called me and asked me to meet you. I thought you’d died in that fire.”

Bruce grimaced. “I managed to get away at the last second. Had to lay low for a long while,” he murmured. Remembering the flames licking at him always made him feel queasy. He was sure that it had been an accident - General Ross had been very clear on the fact that he wanted Bruce alive, to study him - but the lab had been full of volatile chemicals needed to compose the somnacin-compounds necessary for dreamsharing.

As far as he knew, Bruce was the only survivor of that night, but he hadn’t exactly stuck around to find out if anyone else had made it. He’d fled, as quickly and as far as he had been able to.

“Cobb said you need help,” Arthur said. He sounded calm, but Bruce still could hear an edge to his voice. Arthur was uncomfortable with Cobb getting involved, and from what Bruce had learned in the past few days, he could relate. “How did you manage to track him down?”

“I had help.” Bruce inhaled sharply. How much could he tell this man? How much was too much and made Arthur decide not to help him?

“SHIELD.” Arthur nodded and looked at him calmly, watching him like a hawk.

Bruce smiled slightly. “Yes,” he agreed easily. “SHIELD.”

Arthur nodded again. “I’m willing to hear you out,” he said, “because Dom asked me to. If I don’t like what you’re saying, or what you’re not saying, I get up and leave, and you won’t find me again.”

“I’m sure of that,” Bruce muttered. “Okay.”

Arthur nodded. “Then tell me what’s going on.”

~~

“Arthur.” Eames’ voice was tinny over the cell phone connection, but he still sounded surprised to hear from Arthur. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“I just had a very interesting job offer,” Arthur said and glanced out of the window of his hotel room. He hadn’t seen anyone follow him, but there was this itch under his skin that told him he was being watched.

“Oh?” Eames asked. “What?”

“Extraction, in a way. We’re supposed to find out if someone’s been messing with this guy’s mind.” Arthur waited a few heartbeats. “You in?”

“You got more information about it?” Eames cautiously asked. “This isn’t like you.”

“Dom asked.” Arthur tapped his fingertips against the smooth case of the PASIV. “And this guy I talked to, he was backed by SHIELD.”

“The government?” Eames allowed surprise to color his voice. “Arthur...”

“I know,” Arthur interrupted him. “But this is a one-time chance, Eames. Something different. A new challenge.” He waited for a few moments. “Do I need to find another forger?”

~~

Hawkeye moved on silent feet across the roof and slid down the fire escape without making a single sound. He waited, crouched low, for a moment, but nobody had seen him. 

Casually flipping up his collar, he joined the people mingling in the street. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like one of them, a man weary after a long day of work and on his way home to a small flat.

The phone in his pocket vibrated quietly, and he accepted the call with a quick swipe of his thumb across the screen after checking the caller ID.

“How’s Brazil?” he said by way of greeting.

“Hot,” Natasha immediately replied, but without elaborating. “How’s London?”

“He made a call,” he reported, “but he’s definitely in. What about your side?”

“Oh, Mr. Eames definitely received a call,” Natasha purred into his ear. “He had some doubts, but I managed to persuade him that joining Arthur on this trip would be the best course of action.”

Clint’s lips twitched into a brief, mirthless smile. “Good,” he simply said. “I see you in New Mexico.”

It had been Natasha’s idea to split up as soon as they realized that the two criminals known as Arthur and Eames had done the same. Clint had gone to London with Bruce and Natasha had tracked Eames, a talented thief and forger, down to Brazil.

“I don’t think they are going to call the girl,” Natasha said now. “It looks as if they are determined to keep her out of this, for whatever reason.”

“She’s in Los Angeles, with Cobb,” Clint told her. “Just got the info from Hill. If we need her, we can pick her up.”

“Let’s see what our dreamthieves do,” she replied. “See you later.” And with that, she cut the connection.

Clint entered the hotel through the front door and nodded politely at the staff. He took the stairs to their floor and knocked twice before entering the room he and Bruce were sharing.

Bruce was sitting crosslegged on one of the beds, his phone next to his knee. “He said he’s in and that he’s assembling a team,” he reported without opening his eyes. “Knowing Arthur, he’ll be ready to meet us in New Mexico in a few days.”

Clint nodded and shrugged out of his jacket. “Good,” he simply said. “I just hope that’s enough time for Thor’s kid.”

~~

Leonard McCoy considered James T. Kirk his friend, and he considered himself Jim’s friend since the day they had met on a shuttle. He hadn’t been looking for a friend then, only for an escape from the hell his divorce had become.

Jim hadn’t cared. He’d been there for Leonard, a steadfast presence by his side, and he hadn’t turned his back on him when Leonard had moped, when he’d struggled or when he’d sunk into a depression about not being allowed to see his little girl on her birthday or for Christmas.

Jim had always been there for him. He’d drunk with him, he’d dragged him out to the cadet’s parties, and he’d studied with him, or at least parallel to him. Jim understood when Leonard didn’t want to go to the bar because of a test the next morning. It didn’t always mean he stayed home as well, because Jim was one of those people that never needed to spend much time studying. He was disgustingly smart, but he never tried to get between his friends and their own studies.

He was a good friend, a supportive friend, and Leonard hoped that the same could be said about him.

Over time, they had become so much more than simply friends, and it drove him crazy; to be kept at arm’s length by Jim. He didn’t know why Jim was so hung up on this girl, Freya, that he risked the Enterprise’s mission and Odin’s wrath just to flirt with her, and Jim didn’t tell him. 

Unlike Jim, Leonard didn’t make friends easily. he got on well with the staff of his sickbay, but he still preferred to spend his free time on the bridge, where Jim was - Jim and Spock and him, they had gotten close over the months in space, far away from home, and through the adventures and missions they had shared and survived together.

And now, Jim was in trouble, and it was as if he didn’t even realize it. It wasn’t like him; not at all. Jim could be as charming and as charismatic as any smart Starfleet diplomat, and it was baffling to see him risk the mission just because of a woman he’d barely met.

Of course Jim also had the reputation of a playboy, and Leonard was the first one to admit that this reputation was rooted firmly in the truth. He’d seen Jim bring home his fair share of bedpartners. Male, female, human, alien, Jim didn’t discriminate as long as a good time was had by everybody involved.

And yet, he’d never gone this far.

Leonard had no clue whatsoever what had possessed him.

And then, Thor, son of Odin Allfather, had gone ahead and had claimed that Jim was his son.

That he was Jim’s father.

That he was George Kirk, the hero of the Kelvin, the man who had died to save his crew and his family.

Jim never talked much about his family. Leonard knew, of course, the stories about George Kirk, and he’d met Commodore Winona Kirk once, briefly, when she’d been at the academy for a committee meeting and had picked her son up for lunch, to catch up.

Jim had obviously never met his father, and his relationship to his mother wasn’t close. There was no doubt for Leonard that Jim loved his mother, but he loved her in a fierce, abstract way of a child who had never spent a lot of time with their parent.

As far as Leonard knew, Jim had been raised by his grandparents and later by his stepfather Frank, who had struggled with the bright, stubborn kid Jim had been. 

Leonard didn’t know what to make of Thor’s claims, and judging by his behavior, neither did Jim himself. He acted as if Thor was cornering him and attacking him; his behavior very similar to that he had shown on his first meeting with Spock.

As if the Vulcan had been attracted by Leonard’s thoughts, he appeared in the room and silently sat down at the table with him.

“He asleep?” Leonard asked gruffly, and Spock tilted his head slightly and raised an eyebrow while his hand crept over the table, closer to to Leonard’s.

Leonard sighed. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“Considering the circumstances, it is of little surprise the Captain doesn’t find rest. Perhaps a mild sedative could get administered, Doctor.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Leonard frowned and moved his own hand, until his fingers barely brushed against Spock’s.

The relationship they shared was still weird, a surprise and unexpected, and he couldn’t help the small thrill that ran along his spine when his fingers touched Spock’s in a gesture that seemed innocent and was everything but. They had agreed to be discreet, not to indulge when on duty, but Leonard was stressed and he craved some of Spock’s calmness to soothe his troubled mind.

The Vulcan apparently picked up on the turmoil that raged in him, because he didn’t remove his hand, but tightened his grip carefully. “Leonard,” he murmured. “To borrow one of the Captain’s favourite phrases, it will be okay.”

Leonard snorted. “You sure about that?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for an answer and straightened. “You’re right, Jim’s a grown man, he knows what he’s doing. Right?”

“Right,” Spock agreed, but he kept looking at Leonard’s face as if he could read it like an open book. Maybe he could, and maybe Leonard wasn’t as good at hiding the betrayal and jealousy he felt as he thought he was.

The sound of footsteps hurrying closer made him pull back his hand reluctantly, and by the time Tony Stark burst into the room, Spock and he were not even looking at each other.

“You might want to come,” Stark panted. “Odin just walked in on Freya and your Captain making out.”

~~

“Whoa.” Eames stumbled slightly and blinked rapidly. “That was different.”

Barton gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Welcome to Asgard, I guess,” he said while reaching out a steadying hand to Dr. Banner. “And thank you for travelling by Bifrost.”

Eames grinned, amused despite himself, and took a moment to look around.

The lovely Miss Romanoff had already briefed him and Arthur about the fact that they would be travelling to another realm for this job, but she hadn’t mentioned that it would be such a dizzying experience and that Asgard, the planet on which they had arrived, was so utterly alien. 

Eames still had his doubts about taking this job, and he would have preferred it very much to sit it out, no matter how determined Arthur had been to take it. He and Arthur weren’t joined at the hip, not unless they decided to stick with each other for a while, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to spend large parts of the year apart.

It made their reunions so much more exciting, almost explosive.

Still, Eames was aware that Arthur had considered going back to the straight and narrow after Cobb had returned to his children, that he’d grown weary of the illegal side of dreamsharing. Arthur hadn’t bothered to hide his feelings from him. He rarely did, nowadays, or maybe Eames had just gotten better at reading him.

And if this was a trap, there was no way he would let Arthur walk into it without backup.

It was the main reason why they had elected not to involve Ariadne or any of their other acquaintances. There was no need to get them involved. Arthur could build, maybe not as well as an architect, but it would suffice, and Eames could take over the job of an extractor. 

The glint of gold pulled his attention to the armed man who silently stood off to the side, a long and wicked looking sword held in his hands. His skin was dark and his face was expressionless. Next to him stood Thor, the God of thunder, a deep frown marring his face.

Eames recognized Thor from the reports about the alien attack on Manhattan, but he was the first to admit that from up close, Thor looked even more impressive than he had on the screen of his TV. His hammer, dangling from his belt, looked even heavier than he had imagined, and the cape covering his back had an even darker, lusher shade of red.

He’d snorted in amusement when the agent that had managed to find Arthur had armed himself with a bow and a quiver full of arrows, but considering where they were right now, the laughter died right in his throat.

“My friends,” Thor intoned. “Your return is timely, and more than welcome.”

“I take it things aren’t going so well here,” Natasha said with a quick glance at her partner.

“Unfortunately not,” Thor admitted gravely. “Our fortune has taken a turn to the worse. There has been…an incident.”

“What kind of incident?” Barton wanted to know at the same time as Dr. Banner asked, “Thor, what happened?”

“Freya.” Thor shook his head and turned, silently inviting them to follow him. “She sought out my son and stirred the displeasure of my father. Odin incarcerated our friends in the deepest cells on Asgard.”

“Okay.” Natasha tilted her head slightly to the side. “So what do we do now?”

~~

The appropriate course of action, it seemed, was to seek an audience with Odin Allfather and hope that he’d allow them to see the prisoners, to prove the innocence of Thor’s son and to find out whether his mind had been tampered with. In the meantime, Eames and Arthur were ushered into Thor’s private rooms, and food and drinks were served.

“This is definitely not what I imagined when I thought about visiting alien planets,” Eames said once they were alone, a small smirk playing around his lips.

Arthur simply sighed and selected a piece of fruit from the plate on the table.

~~

“Pure strength alone will not get us out of this cell,” Spock stated after careful examination of the thick iron bars surrounding them.

“At least not the strength we have,” Steve agreed. “I see no locking mechanism…at least none I can identify.”

“Affirmative.” Spock’s fingers ran carefully along the bottom of the bars. “Considering the technological advancement of the Asgardians, a forcefield seems the most likely.” He tilted his head to the side and inspected the cell before he reached out and tried to find out if there was a forcefield he could feel.

From his spot on the straw-covered cot in the corner, McCoy made a faint noise of alarm. “What if this hypothetical forcefield is not as hypothetical as you think it is and uses lethal strength, you moron?” he growled. 

To Tony, who was crouched in the opposite corner and who was also inspecting the bars, it sounded as if McCoy had wanted to say something different, but since it wasn’t relevant to their escaping attempts, he dropped the thought and ignored it. 

“Doctor,” Spock replied patiently, “There is no indicator that Odin Allfather wants to harm us.”

“Only Jimmyboy here,” Tony pointed out. “At least that’s how I interpreted the spear he was swinging around.” He sighed and straightened slightly. It was too dark in the little cell to see a lot…

His fingers tapped without conscious decision against his chest. He’d pulled on a thick sweater before coming to Asgard, trying to hide the reactor from view as much as possible. It wasn’t well-known, not even on Earth, how tightly the reactor was wired into his ribcage, how deep it reached into his chest and how vulnerable he was due to it.

Right now, he needed the light to see, and he didn’t hesitate before stripping off his sweater, pulling up his t-shirt and letting the cold blue light of the reactor fall onto the spot where the metal bars disappeared in the ground.

“What are you doing?” Steve cautiously asked from behind him. Tony turned around and released the edge of the shirt he’d clamped between his teeth.

“We somehow got into this cage,” he explained. “So there has to be a mechanism to open it. I agree with Link here – some kind of invisible force field we can’t detect seems likely, but even then, the bars have to be moved somehow.”

“What is that in your chest?” McCoy asked without showing any interest to what Tony had just said, and Tony grinned.

“That, my friend,” he said, his fingers automatically reaching up to tap against the glass again, “is a miniaturized arc reactor. My greatest invention, if I say so myself.”

“What’s it doing in your chest?” Jim wanted to know.

“Uh...mostly keeping me alive,” Tony replied without missing a beat before turning back to the bars of the cage. “Right now, it serves as an awesome nightlight.”

He still heard the muttered “barbaric” McCoy couldn’t hold back, despite Kirk’s obvious attempts of shushing him. 

He chose to ignore it. Future or not, his arc reactor was not barbaric, and McCoy didn’t know what he was talking about.

~~

“My father has agreed on letting me talk to you,” Thor announced as he stepped up to the cage. “He is not willing to let you out just yet.” He bowed his head slightly. “We are, indeed, working on this problem.”

“Thor,” Steve said, his voice low and firm. “We didn’t do anything, why are we in this cell?”

“My father decreed so,” Thor replied. “I do not know his reasons, friend Steve. I apologize for the discomfort and I assure you that I never meant any harm to you.”

“We’re not harmed, Thor,” Tony pointed out, his voice pitched surprisingly gentle. “Right, guys? We’re just peachy in here.” He shrugged slightly. “We’d be glad if you could bake a file into a loaf of bread and smuggle it in here, but don’t worry about us, Big Guy.”

“Indeed,” Spock agreed after a quick glance at the members of his team. “We are unharmed.”

Thor’s gaze shifted until it fell onto Kirk. “What about you?” he asked. “Has my father harmed you?”

Jim suddenly found himself the center of attention, a place he usually cherished. Right now, it almost made him squirm.

“He has not,” he said and stepped closer to the bars.

Eyes similar to those he saw every morning in the mirror regarded him calmly. Jim still instinctively rebelled against the thought that this guy was his father, that _Thor_ was _George Kirk_ and that he had abandoned him and his mother, but he couldn’t deny that there was some sort of instant connection between them.

Maybe it wasn’t the bond between a father and a son, but they recognized each other as fighters.

“These guys have nothing to do with the situation,” he said, as calmly as he could while keeping eye contact with Thor. “They shouldn’t be in here. Can’t you ask your father to release them? They did nothing wrong.”

It was his fault, his alone, that they were locked up, and he still couldn’t explain what it was about Freya that had pulled him in so much. Sure, she was a beautiful woman, but Jim had met many of those before and had never felt like this.

“I am aware,” Thor replied, interrupting Jim’s thoughts. “My father, however, is in contemplation of sending all of you to Niflheim, to be rid of an unfortunate situation. I am pleading with him, and Hawkeye, Widow and Dr. Banner have brought help from Earth.”

“What kind of help?” McCoy asked suspiciously. He’d stepped close to Jim’s elbow, as if he wanted to make a point. Knowing Bones, Jim thought fondly, he did, and knowing Bones, he would stay there until they dragged him away.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that point.

“The kind of help that hopefully will get us out of here,” Tony cut in. 

Steve nodded and added, “Together. All of us. We won’t leave anyone behind.”

“Very well,” Thor agreed. “I shall attempt to talk to my father again.”

~~

As much as Thor tried to keep his chin up, a curious expression he’d overheard on many occasions while wandering on Earth, he couldn’t combat the dark cloud of doubt and fear that threatened to overwhelm him as he waited patiently for his father to deign him a moment of his time.

The situation seemed dark, and while Thor still had a few options he liked to keep open, Odin’s own admission that he contemplated sending the offending humans to Niflheim worried him. 

His father was not an unjust man. He was a good ruler of Asgard, and Thor strived to make him proud and follow his examples. Odin was a beloved ruler, as well.

And yet, he had a blind spot regarding Freya, the leader of the Valkyries. In Odin’s eye, she could do little wrong, and the blame for their current situation was squarely placed upon James Kirk’s shoulders.

Thor had not been given an opportunity to interact with his son. He hadn’t even held him as a tiny babe. Instead, he had given his mortal life to protect his wife and his infant son and had to content himself with watching him from afar, relying on his own mother to find out how James was faring.

No father wanted to keep a distance like Thor had been forced to do, and he hoped fervently that one day, he would get the chance of seeing his offspring grow up, teach them how to be brave in battle, and how to curb their pride and become good people.

He hadn’t been given this chance with James. Everything James had become, he had done so by himself and without the helping and guiding hand of a father.

And now, with the tiny babe he’d given his life for already in his adulthood, Thor had been given the chance to step in and reveal himself as a parent, only because some dark forces were trying to harm his son.

Thor had never had the chance to be a father to the boy, but now he could do his fatherly duty and for once protect James from a bitter fate.

That James didn’t want his help hurt bitterly, but Thor had taken the blow and had gotten back to his feet, strong and steady like the warrior he was. 

Whether James wanted his help and protection or not, he would get it, no matter how much it would hurt Thor himself. He’d already lost his brother, he wouldn’t lose his son too, not if there was anything to be done about it.

If that meant he had to grovel before his father, he would gladly take the blow to his pride.

~~

Eames waited until Banner had set up a makeshift laboratory to create a somnacin-compound out of thin air and desperation before he grabbed Arthur firmly by the arm and dragged him into the far corner.

“Have you considered how to determine whether there was a manipulation?” he hissed, his lips close to Arthur’s ear to avoid being overheard.

Arthur’s lips twitched slightly. “Not quite,” he murmured back. “Working on it.”

“Should have done that before you agreed to take on the job, hm?” Eames fingers tightened on Arthur’s elbow, but Arthur didn’t even flinch.

“We’ll figure it out,” he pointed out calmly. “Relax and trust me, Mr. Eames.”

Eames released Arthur’s arm with a disgusted sound. “We are on an alien planet, Arthur,” he pointed out, his voice quiet and intense. “If this doesn’t work out, we can’t simply take the next flight out of here and hoping these people won’t follow.”

“I know.” Arthur took a careful breath. “If there is a way, we will find it,” he said. “After all, we pulled off the impossible before. We pulled off Inception.”

“I keep telling you, Inception was never impossible,” Eames growled before giving up and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “If we don’t get out of this, it’s on you.”

Arthur smiled faintly. “I think I can live with that.”

“Not for long, probably,” Eames grunted and turned to stalk away. He’d learned a few things by observing Yusuf in his lab, and he wanted to make sure Dr. Banner didn’t make any obvious mistakes in his calculations.

~~

By the time Thor returned to the cage, Spock, Jim and Steve had combined their tactical knowledge and had come up with a truly impressive number of escape plans, mostly to alleviate the boredom.

“Use the energy of your arc reactor to overload the forcefield we’re still certain exists?” Steve said when Thor entered the antechamber.

“Great plan, Cap,” Tony replied sarcastically. “That’s just the thing I need. Cardiac arrest.”

“Bones is a doctor. He could keep you alive,” Jim tossed in. “Until we’re out of here.”

“I’m a doctor, not a magician. Besides, force field or not, we’d still be stuck behind these bars,” McCoy added darkly.

Thor chuckled to get their attention just as the armed guards entered, their weapons rattling as they led Clint and Natasha in.

“My father has agreed on letting the Man of Iron and your officer of science out of the cage to figure out how to clear your name.” He gave Jim a brief nod. “However, he insists on keeping the rest of you here, as a guarantee that no attempt of flight will be made.” He lowered his head briefly. “I have sworn him on my honor that no such thing will happen.”

“And it won’t,” Steve immediately promised. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Jim nodded his agreement.

“Hawkeye and Widow have volunteered to take your places,” Thor told Tony, but he didn’t give him time to reply.

Silently and on invisible hinges, one side of the cage swung open, allowing Spock and Tony to step out and Natasha and Clint to take their place.

“We will get you out,” Tony promised quietly. “All of you.”

Steve gave him a nod. It was all they needed to tell Tony Steve trusted him and that he should be careful.

Deliberately, slowly, Tony turned away from the cage and followed Thor and Spock out.

~~

Thor led Spock and Tony through long gilded hallways, past armored guards and what looked like priceless artifacts and spoils of war. Tony tried to memorize the path they had taken, and neither Thor nor Spock seemed willing to engage in small talk, and therefore a heavy silence had fallen between them.

Finally, they reached a set of chambers filled with the most exquisite luxuries Asgard had to offer. The bed was covered in thick, lush furs, and a tray filled with meat and fruit had been placed on the wooden table.

Next to the food, an open suitcase had been placed. Tony spied electronics and assumed that this was the PASIV device. A screwdriver had been placed next to it, and Tony’s fingers itched to find out more about its construction.

He had spent the past days in a dark and intellectual unstimulating cage, and the sudden displays of splendor were almost overwhelming. He didn’t know where to look first, and it was a few seconds before he managed to get himself under enough control to turn to Thor and ask, “Bruce?”

“Dr. Banner and Mr. Eames are currently busy trying to develop a new compound in the bathroom,” a voice from behind Thor replied. It belonged to a man with dark, slicked back hair who had his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. “I’m Arthur.”

“Just Arthur, huh?” Tony mused and gave Arthur a slow once-over. He looked harmless enough in Tony’s opinion.

“Just Arthur, Mr. Stark.” Arthur gave him a court nod, and for a moment, Tony wondered whether he himself had ever been the mark of a mindcrime and was just not aware of it, and if that was where Arthur knew his name from.

He shook the thought off almost immediately. Like any good CEO of a big company, he had been extensively trained to withstand an attempt at extracting information from his mind. He was a famous man, it was possible that Arthur had just recognized his face.

No need to become paranoid.

“So,” he drawled and turned toward the PASIV. He was curious. “This is it, then?”

Arthur tensed and took a step toward the device. He moved with a cat-like grace, quick and silent on his feet. This was a man confident in his skills and abilities, a man who was an experienced criminal and who could be ruthless if he needed to be, at least according to Bruce and Clint. Tony suspected Arthur had a military background, and that he would be hard to take in a fight.

“Yes,” he simply said and brushed his fingertips along the edge of the device. His eyes flickered to Spock for a moment before settling back on Tony. “This is it.”

Spock had kept himself to the background until now, willing to let Tony take control of the conversation and taking the role of an observer. 

If Arthur was surprised or shocked by his appearance, he didn’t show it, but Tony suspected that he had seen all kinds of things in the dreams he’d infiltrated in the past. Real aliens weren’t much of a stretch from where they were standing; besides, the invasion of the Chitauri had made sure every single being in the civilized world was aware humans weren’t alone in the universe.

“This is Spock – no last name either,” Tony introduced with a wave toward the Vulcan, since Thor didn’t make any move to do so. 

“Incorrect, Mr. Stark,” Spock calmly replied. “My last name is merely unpronounceable for human beings.”

Tony blinked at him and shook his head slightly. “One way or another,” he replied while making a beeline to the food. “The way I see it, we need to work together on this, or none of us will leave the hospitality of Asgard, and our first priority should be to get our people free.”

“And prove that my son is innocent,” Thor added.

“And that,” Tony agreed. “So, talk to me, Arthur. How does this work, and what do we need to do to go home?”

~~

Spock watched for a moment as Tony ate and Arthur pointed out the basics of the PASIV to him. He was more than familiar with the dreamsharing technology, although the device Arthur had brought to Asgard was rather primitive as far as Spock was concerned.

For a brief second, he entertained the thought of dropping a few hints as to how the device could be fundamentally improved, but the First Directive stopped him. He’d shared long discussions with his Elder Self about the many ways in which Nero and Spock’s arrival in the past had changed the timeline of the universe, and he was keenly aware that he needed to tread carefully here.

Nobody could tell how much the Asgardians really knew. They seemed barbaric and archaic, but under the façade, they were a highly developed race.

He didn’t know why and how Thor had brought human beings from the twenty-first century to Asgard, and he hadn’t asked. Most of his attention had been focused on the diplomatic incident the Captain had caused and on trying to keep the illogical Dr. McCoy from making the situation worse. 

When it became obvious that Tony and Arthur would be preoccupied with the PASIV for the foreseeable future, Spock excused himself and went in search of this bathroom Arthur had mentioned earlier, to figure out what exactly Dr. Banner and this Mr. Eames were doing. If they were trying to develop a new compound of somnacin, Spock could offer his help and his scientific background to make sure they didn’t accidentally poison either themselves or Captain Kirk.

Plus, it gave him something to do. As illogical as it was, Spock was not overly fond of sitting around and not doing anything when one of his friends was in danger of being impaled on an archaic weapon which most likely housed very modern technology.

~~

“Okay, so this is the problem we have.” Arthur gave each of them a brief look before he glanced down at the roll of parchment in front of him.

They had come together for what turned out to be breakfast, thick slices of bread, cheese and meat again, after long hours of work.

Bruce was clutching a mug of herbal tea with both hands. His hair was sticking up wildly, and he looked a little bit ill, as if his skin had turned a vague shade of green. His eyes were half-closed, he was breathing deeply and evenly, but he was listening. Next to him, Tony Stark was sprawled half across the table. His fingers were ink-stained, and he was doodling on a second skin of parchment. 

Arthur wasn’t certain Stark was listening, but he was willing to give him a pass considering Stark had been awake most of the night, learning everything Arthur could and would teach him about the PASIV.

Stark was every bit as smart as he was said to be, and he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Arthur had been a little bit surprised about that, and if, as a result, he and Stark had taken apart the PASIV and had put it back together, nobody needed to know about it, especially not Eames, who was glaring at Stark from the corner he’d picked for himself.

“What problem?” Thor asked. He was the only one of them who looked awake and ready for battle. Arthur didn’t know where Thor had been the night. The Asgardian had left them and had only returned in time for the meal.

“The PASIV. There has been a malfunction we found when we took it apart last night,” Arthur explained. “It’s fixable, but we do need some things for that.”

“Like what?” Eames asked.

“I have a list,” Arthur replied and knocked his knuckles on the parchment in front of him. “Most of these should be easily obtained.”

“I shall take care of this,” Thor said. “As I’m the only one allowed to move freely around this realm.”

“Thank you.” Arthur gave him a brief nod. “As soon as we have these materials, we can fix the PASIV and finish the job.”

“The compound is coming along nicely,” Bruce spoke up. “We’ve come to a breakthrough, thanks to Spock.”

“Good.” Thor nodded and accepted the roll of parchment from Arthur. “I trust there isn’t anything else you need?”

“No. The compound should be sufficient for our purposes,” Spock replied.

Arthur suppressed a smile. Eames had wandered by a few times during the night and had muttered complaints about Spock – apparently, Vulcans didn’t have any emotions, and their lack of imagination was even worse than Arthur’s – and he suspected, if Spock was prone to complaining, he would have done so. Eames was emotional, his line of thinking didn’t always follow logical lines, but meandered along creative paths that came nonetheless to impressive results.

Arthur could imagine all too well that these two had clashed, and it explained Dr. Banner’s exhausted appearance. The man had to have the patience and self-control of a saint.

“It does not please me to admit this,” Thor said, glancing down at the list in his hand. “My father is getting impatient to find a solution to this situation. How long will these repairs take you?”

“Depends on how quickly we get the things we need,” Tony answered. “The actual work should be done within a few hours, right?”

Arthur nodded. In Eames’ jaw, a muscle jumped.

“Some of these things are hard to find on Asgard,” Thor admitted as he went down the list. “I shall do my best, of course, but no promises can be made.”

Tony sighed. “Do what you can, Big Guy,” he said. 

If he saw Eames scowling at him, he didn’t pay any attention to it.

~~

“Oh, come on. You rely on petty criminals as a lookout. How is an AI worse than that?”

Tony’s voice drifted through the room, his tone light and teasing. It gave Eames a headache just to listen to him.

“Maybe it’s the fact that so far, no reliable AIs have been developed?” Arthur replied dryly.

Tony chuckled. “If you’re thinking that, you’ve obviously never met JARVIS.” He snapped his fingers. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll reroute the PASIV through Iron Man. That will take care of our energy problem, the wonky circuits and JARVIS can keep an eye on the readings.”

“I don’t know.” Arthur sounded doubtful. “You sure it’s that easy?”

“Well, easy is not exactly the word I would use, but it’s certainly doable.” Tony rapped his knuckles on the parchment he’d spread out on the table. Its edges were pinned down with several objects, one of them an ornamental dagger and another a bright red apple.

“When have you become an expert in dreamsharing?” Eames asked as he stepped closer to them. He could only see the back of Arthur’s head, but he knew he was rolling his eyes.

Tony looked up at him and grinned. “Last night,” he replied cheerfully. “Literally. It’s quite fascinating. Have you thought about automatizing the whole process?”

“No,” Arthur replied. “We haven’t. And we won’t. It’s not necessary for the kind of jobs we take, and recreational dreamsharing is not recommended due to the effects a buildup of somnacin has on the human body.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t done,” Tony pointed out, and Eames, thinking of Yusuf’s dream den, had to agree. It didn’t do anything to brighten his mood.

“Still. Let’s focus on the problem we have here.” Arthur tilted his head up to look at Eames. “I take it the compound is done?”

“Pretty much. All we need is the PASIV and the mark,” Eames replied stiffly. He didn’t even pretend not to notice the amused glint in Arthur’s eyes as he turned around and left again.

~~

Tony Stark generally wasn’t the sharing kind of person.

Sure, he had willingly invited the Avengers to come live with him, and sharing the tower with them and sharing the company and responsibility for it with Pepper was fine, to a degree, but in the end, it was still his company and his tower.

He was protective of this things, and who could blame him for it? He’d learned his bitter lessons, with Obie, with Ivan Vanko, with almost everybody in his life he’d trusted.

Nobody could blame him for being paranoid about someone stealing the specs of the suit, especially considering he was working with professional thieves here. 

And yet, as important as Iron Man was for him personally, other things had started to creep under his defenses and had taken root in his chest and in his damaged heart. Suddenly he found himself in the unusal position of caring not only for himself, Pepper and Rhodey, but for a bunch of crazy superheroes as well.

It meant he was willing to sacrifice some parts of Iron Man to help out a buddy, but it didn’t mean he was willing to let another person open the suit and dig around the circuits. Nothing good could come from that.

He carefully did the work himself, pulling circuits apart and connecting them carefully to dwarven allows Thor had brought them and to the PASIV technology. Bruce and Arthur were hovering behind him when he made the last connections and knocked the screwdriver he’d stolen from Arthur against the red-and-gold helmet of the suit.

“JARVIS, you there?” he asked.

The eyes of the helmet glowed blue. “Indeed, sir,” the British voice of the AI replied. “Uploading secondary unit.”

“Yeah, great.” Tony dropped the screwdriver and wiped his hands on his pants. “Run a quick check for me when you’re done.”

“Certainly, sir,” JARVIS replied.

Eames huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, and Tony gave him an irritated glance, but bit his tongue and didn’t comment. He didn’t know what the Brit’s problem was, but he assumed Eames was as protective about the PASIV as Tony was about JARVIS and that was all.

“If this works, we can go ahead and move the schedule up,” Arthur murmured with a glance at Eames. “Let us know when your computer has results, Tony?”

“He’s an AI,” Tony replied, but he nodded, his eyes focused on the mess of wires that had taken almost half of the table.

Arthur gave Eames a sharp glance and a nod toward the bathroom, and Eames huffed again, but he stood and followed him reluctantly. Arthur came to a stop between the giant wooden bathtub and the gently bubbling beakers lined up around the washing bowl.

“What are you doing, Mr. Eames?” he asked, his voice caught somewhere between cuttingly sharp and weary.

“I’m not doing anything,” Eames protested. “In fact, I’m doing every bloody single thing I can not to do anything.”

Arthur stared at him for a long moment, confusion obvious in his face.

“Mr. Eames,” he finally said, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly. “Are you jealous of Tony Stark?”

“Jealous? Pah. Your sense of self-importance is as inflated as always, Arthur.” Eames snorted.

The twitch at the corners of Arthur’s mouth grew more pronounced. “You _are_ jealous. Look at you.”

“I’m not.” Eames didn’t move when Arthur stepped closer. “If you remember, I was the one who stipulated the terms of our relationship as _wide open_.”

“You were.” Arthur was close enough now that Eames could feel his body heat through their clothes. “But this job is weird enough. All the information we get is submitted in rhymed prose, we go into the mark’s mind relatively blind, and instead of one tourist, we have at least two.”

“It’s fairly unprofessional,” Eames agreed. “But the way I see it, we still have to treat this as a normal extraction: get in, find the information in this kid’s mind, get the information, get out.”

Arthur nodded. He agreed with Eames’ assessment, even if this job was everything but normal. Part of him was annoyed about the lack of specificities, and another part, the part he tried to keep under control, was excited like a rookie at the newness of everything. The things Tony Stark had done to the PASIV, the speed at which his mind worked, was incredible to observe. For a split second, Arthur wished to get into Tony’s mind and poke around, but he knew that there had been an attempt at that several years ago that had miserably failed. Tony Stark’s mind was strong and had simply been too much for the team of extractors to handle.

“After this job,” Eames said, his voice pitched low, “we should take a vacation. You and me, Arthur. No jobs, no phone calls. We’ll switch off our mobiles and won’t answer when someone comes knocking on the door.”

Arthur chuckled. “Fine,” he agreed. “I’m sure something can be arranged.” 

He was close, close enough to kiss, and Eames leaned in slightly, anticipating Arthur to pull back and chastise him that it was unprofessional to engage in kissing on the job, even a job as unconventional and plain weird as this one, but instead, Arthur moved closer as well. Their lips were just a hair’s breath apart when a throat was cleared obnoxiously behind Eames.

“When you’re done making out, we’re ready out here,” Tony cheerfully announced.

Arthur closed his eyes.

Eames’ shoulders slumped. “Anybody ever tell you that you have lousy timing, Stark?” he muttered.

“All the time. Part of my charm.” Tony didn’t move away. “Are you coming, or do I need to find a squirt bottle?”

“Tony,” Bruce called out from the other room. “Give them five minutes and come help get rid of the chaos you made here!”

Tony grumbled something under his breath, but he shuffled out of the room, and Eames couldn’t help himself.

He started grinning.

“He is rather obnoxious,” he said as he leaned in and brushed his lips against the sharp edge of Arthur’s cheekbone. “I don’t see what you see in him.”

“Apparently, I have a weakness of obnoxiousness,” Arthur replied dryly and curled his fingers around Eames’ for a moment. “Let’s get this done.”

~~

“We must move with haste, but stealth,” Thor murmured. “My father’s mood has not improved. We need to bring your device to the prisoners and perform the extraction there.”

“Not good,” Tony replied. “Really not good, Big Guy.”

“I am aware,” Thor replied, looking grim. “It has to be done.”

Without speaking a single word and without even looking at each other, Spock and Bruce moved toward the compounds they had developed.

“You see, that? That is creepy,” Tony commented, but he himself was busy with pieces of wire and Iron Man armor and the PASIV, Eames and Arthur seamlessly working around him.

“It was merely logical,” Spock replied blandly, and Tony shook his head slightly. He’d watched the alien keep to the background and letting Bruce handle the majority of work, and he didn’t know what was going on, but he suspected that Spock, coming from the future, didn’t want to cause more damage than his mere existence and their awareness of him had already done. He’d shrugged it off – as long as Bruce didn’t complain, Tony wouldn’t, either.

Spock kept to himself. He didn’t encourage small talk, and he’d answered Arthur’s questions about his captain with concise sentences that were clearly well thought out. 

Spock didn’t want to tell them more than absolutely necessary to make this mission a success. The part of Tony’s brain that had started to amuse itself with theoretical physics when he was stuck in boring board meetings was able to appreciate it and understand it, but the part of his brain that made him irresponsible and unable to play well with others constantly needled and begged him to try and get a rise out of Spock.

Arthur and Bruce made sure to prevent that, and Tony had been able to be on his best behavior around Spock.

By the time Spock neutralized a guard with nothing more than a brief touch to his neck, Tony was convinced that it had been for the best. Spock was as dangerous as Natasha and deserved the same healthy respect as she did.

It was dark, and Tony imagined that they were stuck somewhere in the basement of Asgard. Thor had lighted a pair of torches, and it was the only light they had as they followed him, the PASIV carefully held between Arthur and Tony, Tony’s helmet cradled reluctantly but necessarily in Eames’ broad hands.

He had forgotten how dark it was down here.

~~

As the hours went by, Spock found it harder and harder to keep his superior knowledge of somnacin compounds and electrical engineering to himself. There was no need to reveal himself yet, and he was bound by his oath to respect the First Directive.

It didn’t mean it was easy.

He had to focus on an old Vulcan breathing technique to stop himself from interfering when Tony and Arthur started to talk about the malfunction of the PASIV, and he felt something akin to relief when Tony had almost immediately proposed a solution that, in Spock’s mind, seemed feasible.

It wasn’t logical, to withhold information, but he had sworn that oath and Vulcans were honorable. They followed through when they gave a promise.

When Dr. Banner announced that he needed a break or he couldn’t guarantee for the results of his compounds, Spock had acquiesced it. Dr. Banner had looked rather pale, a condition Spock knew rarely meant anything good. 

It hadn’t stopped him from continuing the work, carefully mixing chemicals and tweaking the compound in a way he’d learned many years ago.

By the time Dr. Banner had returned, his color restored to what fell within normal parameters for a human male of his disposition, the compound had been nearly finished.

Dr. Banner was a rare breed of human, Spock found. He held himself and his emotions tightly under control and didn’t indulge in them as freely as the others did. It was impossible for Spock to ignore the jealousy Mr. Eames projected every time his eyes fell on Arthur and Tony, their heads bent over the spread out parts of the PASIV and what appeared a form of armor Tony Stark had developed. He didn’t need to reach out with his psi-senses to feel the joy Stark felt at delving elbow-deep into the inner life of the PASIV, the cautiousness Arthur responded with, and the growing worry Thor projected.

Humans, he thought as they moved silently through the hallways that would lead them back to the prisoners. They were fascinating, and he did not understand why they underwent the risks of Odin’s wrath for a man they did not know. The only reason they had for getting involved was because Thor had asked them.

Thor, who claimed to be James Tiberius Kirk’s father.

Spock didn’t know what to make of those claims. There was no logical reason he could see for Thor to _fake it_ , as McCoy would put it, but there rarely was a logical reason for anything humans and Asgardians did.

His musings were interrupted when they encountered a guard, but for once, Spock didn’t stand back and let the others handle it. 

His fingers found the points in the guard’s neck before the man knew what was happening, and he sunk to the ground quietly, thanks to Spock’s quick reflexes and superior strength.

“Cool,” Tony whispered, and then, they were on their way, unencumbered by further guards. Odin Allfather had a lot of trust in the walls of his hall and the strength of his prison cells, if the lack of guards was an indicator.

Spock spent the next few moments calculating the odds of Odin’s trust in his walls being misplaced before they reached the cell.

“Spock? That you?” Jim’s voice was rough and scratchy, but he sounded unharmed.

“Indeed, it is,” Spock replied and stepped closer to the bars. The flame of the torch was barely enough to let him recognize the forms of the men still locked up inside. “Are you well, Captain?”

~~

After all the days of inactivity and darkness, the little light given by the torches was like a sunrise, McCoy thought as Spock stepped close enough to the bars for them to recognize him. 

“You are a sight for sore eyes,” Jim said, his body warm where it pressed against McCoy’s side. “Did you manage to figure something out?”

“Yeah, we did,” Tony Stark replied smugly. Bones could easily track him stepping closer thanks to that barbaric piece of metal shoved into his chest. Stark was hiding it under his thick sweater, but Bones could swear he could see a faint circle of light from the direction Tony’s voice had come from.

“Good,” Steve said. “To tell you the truth, we’re kinda missing the sun here.” Nobody contradicted him, and they waited in silence as Tony and a man they hadn’t been introduced to started to assemble something right outside the cell.

“Right,” the unfamiliar man murmured. “Eames and I are going, our mark, Thor and Spock?”

“Yes,” Thor agreed. One of the torches was shuffled around, and in its light, he shifted a shapeless bulky mass off of his shoulders. “Before we prepare for this endeavor, I shall return your arms and possessions to you, my friends.”

“Great, thanks,” Clint murmured. He had barely spoken in the time he’d been in this cage with them, and it was still kind of a shock for McCoy to hear his voice.

It was even more of a shock when Thor handed a bow and a quiver of honest to God arrows into the cell and Clint grabbed them with a soft hum of satisfaction.

“Doctor,” Spock said, his voice calm and carefully measured and so familiar McCoy had to swallow around the tightness in his throat. “I require you to find a vein in the Captain’s arm and secure this intravenous cannula in it.” Their fingers brushed briefly as Spock handed him the needle.

The complaint was already on McCoy’s lips, but the brief touch mollified him enough that he simply gave a sharp nod.

“Captain, you better sit or lie down for this,” Spock said, but Jim was already on the ground, his back leaned against the bars of the cage. He grinned up at Bones, a brief hint of teeth in the flickering light. 

“I trust you not to let me fall,” he murmured.

“We will all make sure you stay safe,” Steve – the _other_ Captain – promised. He was holding a shield now, and Bones frowned. It was as if these people had come straight from the middle ages.

“Yeah, we’ll keep an eye out and hope that Bruce’s compound actually works on Asgardians and…whatever you are, Link,” Tony quipped. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the PASIV.”

The cannula slipped easily into one of Jim’s veins, and Bones successfully fought the urge to brush a hand over Jim’s head.

“Ready?” the unknown voice asked, and when there was no protest, “Tony, now.”

The faint circle of light moved, and moments later, Jim’s body went lax as he fell asleep.

~~

“What now?” Steve asked, his voice a rough whisper. He coughed uncomfortably and asked again. “What are we doing now?”

“Now we’re waiting,” Tony replied. “And we hope that the PASIV won’t break. We kind of fixed it with the box of scraps we had lying around, Arthur and I.” His hand went out and patted one of the sleeping figures gently on the shoulder.

“Arthur?” Clint asked, a suggestive tone to his voice.

“Arthur and Eames,” Tony nodded, not reacting to Clint's gentle teasing. “And in the meantime, tell me what you’ve figured out about the locking mechanism of this cage, people. We still need to get you out of there.”

Bones growled quietly. His fingers were pressed against the pulse point in Jim’s neck, but he didn’t need to worry. Jim’s vitals were stable. “What we’ve figured out about the locking mechanism? Dammit, man, I’m a doctor, not an engineer!”

Tony’s face came close enough to be recognized. He was grinning.

“Luckily for all of us, I am,” he replied. “So. Anything?”

~~

Thor slowly blinked his eyes. He was standing on a concrete construction, a bridge like the ones he’d seen on Midgard – on Earth. 

He was not awake, he reminded himself. This was a dream, and he was in his son’s mind. In Jim’s mind.

And Jim’s mind had taken them to Earth. It looked like the planet Thor had left together with the other Avengers, not like the one Jim should be more familiar with. There were no antigrav gliders, no shuttles and no sign of alien cultures.

Instead, they were standing on a half-finished bridge. A smoking car was a few feet away from them, toward the sharp edge of the construction.

It was a bright and sunny day, the air warm and comfortable. The smell of gasoline and fire filled Thor’s nostrils, and he inhaled sharply.

It felt almost real to him.

A quick glance around revealed Arthur and Eames standing together, frowns on their faces while they were looking around. They were both dressed in suits, Arthur’s sleeves not rolled up to his elbows as they had been for the majority of the past day, when he’d been busy working on the PASIV.

On his other side, Spock and Jim were standing. Jim was looking around curiously, his blue eyes bright in the sunlight.

“This looks familiar,” he commented. His voice had been pitched low, but it still carried to each and every one of them. “Hey, this is the dream I’ve had for the past few weeks. Weird.”

Spock’s eyebrows rose at the revelation, but he didn’t comment. He was dressed in dark pants and his blue uniform shirt, and Jim was wearing civilian clothing in this dream.

“Not weird at all,” Arthur said as he stepped closer. “This is your subconscious mind, after all.”

“Still, strange. I’ve never seen this place before, why is it so…vivid?” Jim asked and whirled around. “Something important happens here. Right here,” he suddenly said and started to move toward the edge of the bridge.

“Captain?” Spock asked as he followed him quickly, and Thor didn’t hesitate before hurrying after the two of them.

“I don’t know, Spock,” Jim muttered. He was standing right on the edge now and was glancing down at the ground, so many feet below them it was almost dizzying. “Somehow, I’m feeling like this is an important place.”

Thor’s attention was focused on him, and he didn’t see as Eames grabbed Arthur’s sleeve and yanked it hard.

“I know what happened,” he whispered furiously. “Arthur!”

Arthur frowned. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Eames, what happened?”

“Hey, you!” Kirk was moving toward the two of them now, a curious expression on the face. “I know you,” he insisted and reached out a hand toward Eames. “I’ve met you before.”

“Not really, no,” Eames replied, but he didn’t move away when Jim stepped even closer and peered closely at his face.

“Tuck,” Jim breathed. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

“Not really, no,” Eames repeated, but Jim was already reaching out, his fingers careful and almost gentle as they brushed against Eames’ shoulder.

“You’re not just a figment of my imagination, are you?” Jim asked breathlessly, and Eames took a deep breath.

“No, I’m not,” he replied. Arthur, he saw, was giving Jim a long hard look, but Jim didn’t even seem to notice.

“Then why have I been dreaming about you?” Jim demanded to know.

Eames sighed. “I think we owe you all an explanation.”

~~

“What will you do if the thing runs out of batteries?” Clint asked almost casually. He was leaning against the bars next to McCoy, his body warm and solid muscles under his clothes. 

On the other side of the cage, Tony Stark snorted. “Hook it up to the arc reactor, I guess,” he replied, his voice almost casual, but his eyes, gleaming dark in the dim light, never moved far away from the PASIV.

“Why would you want to stick an arc reactor in your chest?” McCoy burst out. His fingers were still against Jim’s neck.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter,” Tony said matter-of-factly. “There’s shrapnel in my chest, trying to crawl closer to my heart and killing me. Without the reactor, I’d be long dead.”

McCoy shivered. “Can’t you get surgery?” he asked.

Tony made a dismissive sound. “I know you’re from the future, Doc, so maybe in your time, it’s possible to get them all out,” he said, “but for me, there’s only this.” His fingertips tapped against his chest. “It’s keeping me alive so far.”

“It’s still barbaric,” McCoy grumbled, at the same time as Bruce curiously asked, “What are you using in that thing anyways, palladium?”

“Not anymore,” Tony admitted. His voice sounded almost cheerful now, and McCoy shivered again.

Reluctantly, he removed his fingers from Jim’s throat. They had grown stiff, and he rubbed them for a moment before reaching for the tricorder Thor had brought, together with the rest of their things.

He needed to focus on something, or he would drive himself insane worrying about Spock and Jim. He knew that the tricorder would be just as capable of keeping track of Jim’s pulse as his fingers, but there were some things Bones preferred to do himself.

However, Tony Stark had managed to catch his professional interest. Pointing the instrument at him, he started to take some basic readings.

The reactor went deeper into the man’s chest than he’d estimated. 

“Is part of your sternum missing?” he burst out in surprise as he glanced down at his readings. “How do you even breathe properly?”

Stark winced. “I got used to it,” he said. “What are you doing there?”

“Traces of palladium poisoning in your blood,” McCoy noted. “Your body is fighting against it, but ultimately, some of your inner organs will give out.” He grimaced. “I can’t believe you put palladium in your body!”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Tony shrugged, and Bones directed the tricorder at Steve.

“Super Soldier Serum, huh?” he murmured as he took in the readings. Steve had been more than forthcoming about what had been done to him, and if Bones had ever thought that early 20th century medicine was barbaric, he found his suspicions confirmed by what the readings told him.

Steve gave him a shrug and a bashful smile, and Bones focused his attention on Bruce Banner.

There was either something weird going on with his readings, or something was strange about Banner’s body as well.

“Your gamma ray radiation levels are off the chart,” he grunted.

Bruce gave him a small smile. “I’m well aware of it, Doctor,” he said politely. “Unfortunately, there is nothing to be done about that.”

There really wasn’t, Bones thought as he pointed the tricorder at Thor and adjusted a few settings, but there was something else he could do something about.

Palladium poisoning and its aftereffects were fairly common around certain parts of the galaxy, and even if Bones had never heard of anyone being so stupid and putting the stuff in their _chest_ , he’d treated more than his fair share of victims of the heavy metal.

The tricorder gave a discreet little beep as it finished its scan, and Bones put it away and reached for a hypospray instead.

“You. Stark,” he said. Next to him, Clint and Steve had grown still and tense. “Come here.”

“Why?” Stark asked back, not moving an inch from his spot.

McCoy rolled his eyes. “I’m not an engineer,” he repeated his earlier words, “but I’m a damn good doctor. Now get your ass over here.”

He barely waited for Stark to get within his reach before pressing the hypo against his neck.

It was, technically speaking, an intervention and against the First Directive, but Stark and his team had done what they could to help Jim.

The least Bones could do in return was to cure Stark’s palladium problem.

~~

Dreaming up a mirror was as easy as breathing, and Eames turned away from the group and toward it.

“The woman,” he said. “You only said that there was a woman involved. Did she look like this?”

When he turned back around, he looked like a perfect copy of Freya, enough to make both Jim and Thor stumble back a step.

“That’s her,” Spock calmly agreed. “Fascinating.”

Jim swallowed as he took a step closer. “Tuck?” he asked hesitantly before he frowned. “You were in my mind.”

“We were,” Arthur replied. “Our job was to make you fall in love with this woman.” He nodded at Eames.

“But…why?” Jim shook his head in bewilderment. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Who hired you?” Thor interrupted. His voice had fallen into a deeper, angrier register, and his hand clenched at his side, as if he was yearning for a weapon he usually carried.

Eames dropped the guise of the woman and glanced at Arthur. He’d seen the client only briefly, but it had been enough that he could create a replica.

As soon as he came to the decision, his features rippled and he turned into a slender man, taller than Eames himself, with dark, slicked back hair, pale skin and bright eyes.

“Loki.”

The word was growled, anger and anguish filling Thor’s voice as he said it.

“Loki?” Jim asked. 

“My brother.” Thor shook his head. “Your uncle. He is full of mischief and ill will toward me, it appears.”

“Fascinating,” Spock muttered. “By causing the captain to fall for the woman Odin himself favors, Loki managed to cause a rift not only between Odin and Captain Kirk, but also between Odin and his son, Thor, while at the same time forcing him to acknowledge Captain Kirk, a human, as his son, causing additional discontent. It is quite a ploy.”

Eames returned to his own form and shook his head. “There was something weird about him,” he remembered. “Something…manic, I believe.”

“Where is Loki now?” Spock asked.

“Imprisoned, on Asgard,” Thor replied. “I do not understand. How did he find a path to Earth, to hire you, and how did he find a path to find you?” He nodded toward Jim.

“I don’t know about that,” Arthur muttered. “But maybe you could go and ask him?”

Thor shook his head. “Loki will not tell me, I am afraid,” he admitted. “And I am not sure if there are other ways to find out.” He bowed his head. “I apologize for the harm he almost caused.” 

“The future, huh?” Eames said and nudged Jim, who had crept back to his side. “I would’ve offered to teach you some techniques to protect your own mind, but I fear if you’re going back to the future, you’ll have to find somebody else.”

He seemed unfazed by the idea of talking someone to the future, and Jim tentatively nudged him back.

“Loki will be taken care of,” Thor promised. “I shall make sure of that.”

~~

It was just them now, Thor and Jim, and they stood facing each other while the sun went down behind the skyline of the city.

There were only a few more moments on the clock, Arthur had told them before he had dragged Eames away, and Spock had retreated when Jim had asked him to. 

Now, it was just the two of them.

“For what it’s worth,” Thor said after a long, drawn-out moment of silence. “I am very proud of the man you have become.”

“You had nothing to do with that,” Jim told him. He sounded tired, and stubborn, and Thor’s heart opened for his child at the same time as it bled because Jim’s words were meant to cut deep and they didn’t miss their mark.

“You are right,” he admitted quietly. “And that, I regret.” He straightened slightly. “However, what I did, I do not regret. I did it to save your life, and your mother’s. I did – I do love your mother.”

“Why didn’t you come back, then?” Jim asked. “When everything was said and done. You obviously are alive, why didn’t you go back to her? To us?”

“It wasn’t possible.” Thor shook his head. “I was never meant to stay, and falling in love with Winona…with your mother…it was never supposed to happen.”

“But it did.” Jim’s voice was still hard and unforgiving. A lifetime of disappointment stood behind that tone, Thor knew.

“My father had turned me into a mortal form, for he could not stand my grief about my friends’ deaths,” he explained quietly. “In all my lifetimes, there have only been two mortal women I fell in love with – my lady Jane Foster and your mother.”

Thor dragged a deep breath into his lungs. “It pains me, to speak of these days,” he admitted. “For I had lost much and was weary of losing even more. Your mother brought me back joy, Jim.”

Their time here was running out, he could feel it, and there was one more thing he had to say before it did and they returned to the waking world.

“I was a captain of a space vessel for twelve minutes, James Tiberius Kirk,” he said. “I did what I had to do because I had a good model: Steve Rogers. He is one of the bravest warriors and most honorable and noble men I know.”

Jim nodded reluctantly. The past few days in the cell had given him a brief glance at Steve and his outlook on life and duty, and he’d also heard the story of how Steve Rogers had sacrificed his own life and had put a plane in the water, causing him to spend the next seventy years frozen in ice and still surviving it.

“And yet,” Thor continued as the first notes of music filtered through the air. “Had I been able to foresee the future at this point, I would have chosen my own son as my model, for you are everything a man should strive to be.” He smiled slightly. “I am proud of you. I know this means not much to you, but I…” He swallowed. “I wanted you to know.”

Jim nodded.

“It’s a lot to think about,” he admitted. “A lot of information. I think I need some time to…to really realize what just happened.”

Thor nodded. “That I understand. Did Eames teach you the tricks of his trade?”

“Some of them.” Jim’s grin widened. “Once you get over the fact that they manipulated me into falling in love with some chick, they’re good people.”

“That they are,” Thor agreed just as the music swelled to a crescendo.

~~

“AC/DC, really, Arthur?” Eames murmured as he pulled the needle out of his vein and disposed of it.

“Tony’s choice,” Arthur replied, just as Tony crowed in triumph and jammed his screwdriver into a particularly spot of floor right next to the cell.

“I’m genius, admit it,” he said as the cell slowly opened.

“Yeah, you’re not half bad,” Steve admitted as he scrambled to his feet, gripped Jim’s arm and hauled him out, the others quickly following him. “What now, genius?”

“Now, we return home,” Thor said firmly. He watched as Steve released Jim once he made sure the other man could remain on his feet, and how Spock seamlessly took his place.

“Easy as that?” Tony asked. He was busy disassembling the PASIV, wires carelessly shoved into the case as he worked.

“We will find out,” Thor grimly promised. “Captain Kirk?”

“Thor.” Jim’s mouth twitched slightly. “George. I trust I’ll find you on Asgard, should I need you to?”

“You can always find me here,” Thor promised. “I can, however, not guarantee for your welcome in my father’s court.”

Jim grinned, a carefree smile that reminded Thor of Tony Stark, of all people, and tossed him a vague salute.

“I’ll see you then,” he said, and his eyes had softened from the stubborn refusal to acknowledge Thor as anything but a stranger into something different. It wasn’t love yet, but, Thor thought as Jim grabbed his communicator and hailed the Enterprise to get beamed onboard of his ship, given time and opportunity, it could certainly be nourished into love.

He was looking forward to it.

~~

Heimdall didn’t blink as Thor walked up to him, his cape billowing behind him and his hammer swinging from his fist.

“Heimdall,” Thor called out. “Can you bring these fine people back to their home?” His hand flew out to point at Eames and Arthur.

Heimdall bowed his head slightly. “I shall,” he intoned, and Thor nodded his thanks and turned toward the two.

“Thank you,” Bruce was just saying, sounding awkward and embarrassed. “For your help. If you ever find yourself in trouble with Cobol again…”

Arthur nodded and shook his hand, and then, Tony nudged him with a shoulder.

“When you two are done with your honeymoon,” he said, a faint smile on his lips, “stop by the tower. There’s a few things I want to try with your PASIV. Install a proper AI, for example. If you’re game.”

Arthur smiled. “Thank you,” he said and nudged Tony back. “I’ll think about it.”

Eames just rolled his eyes.

“You stay out of trouble,” Tony told him teasingly and gave him a wink.

Eames didn’t get a chance to get a last word in before the Bifrost started to move.

Moments later, he and Arthur and their broken PASIV were back on Earth, standing in the middle of New Mexico.

Eames grinned widely as he took in the area around them and inhaled deeply.

“Bora-Bora’s supposed to be nice this time of year.”

Arthur laughed.

He didn’t disagree.

~~

“We should’ve kept them here,” Clint muttered, his fingers on the fledging of an arrow. “Get into Loki’s mind, see how he likes it.”

“We will deal with Loki,” Thor promised. “But not with trickery. We will face him like the honorable warriors we are.”

Clint grinned at that, and the other Avengers quickly followed his example.

~~

And then, the Avengers went after Loki.

~~

Bones let himself into the Captain’s quarters using not his medical override, but Jim’s personal code. The door opened for him and a wave of dry, warm air greeted him.

“Jim?” he called out softly, in case Jim had actually managed to doze off.

There was no answer, and Bones frowned slightly and stepped further into the room. He didn’t want to disturb Jim, but he needed to make sure he was okay.

He found Jim in the little alcove that held his bed, shirtless and sprawled boneless across the sheets with a peaceful expression on his face. 

Spock was kneeling next to him. He was dressed in the heavy black robes that made up Vulcan civilian clothing, and his fingers were resting gently against Jim’s face, allowing their minds to meld.

Bones hesitated when he saw them. A meld was something very private, and he suddenly had the disquieting feeling of intruding on them.

Neither Spock nor Jim had moved or even twitched or otherwise acknowledged that they’d noticed him coming in, and Bones swallowed hard and turned on his heel, to tiptoe out and allow his two friends their moment of privacy.

“Leonard.”

“Hey, Bones, where are you going?”

He had almost reached the door, but the sound of their voices made him freeze on the spot. Spock’s was as bland as always, and Jim sound lazy and languid, in a way Bones hadn’t heard from him in a long while. It made something in his chest ache fiercely, but in a good way.

“Looked like you two were busy,” he said gruffly and without turning around to face them. “Didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Leonard, come here,” Spock murmured. There was no emotion in his voice, and still Bones caught the hint of patient amusement.

He balled his hands into fists and irrationally thought for a moment about refusing, but he quickly came to his senses and gave up on the idea. It would be extremely childish, and as much as he reveled sometimes into acting as illogical as he could around Spock, this was not such a moment.

Storming out in a huff would not provide him with the answers to the questions still running around his head.

When he turned around to face them again, Spock’s fingers were idly tracing invisible patterns on Jim’s skin, and Jim’s grin was carefree and teasing, reminding him more of the cadet who had befriended him at the academy than the highly decorated captain of Starfleet’s flagship.

“You know you’re not interrupting, ever,” Jim said. “Spock was just checking up on my mental shields.”

Bones frowned slightly. “Something wrong with them?” he asked, a hint of worry starting to stir in his stomach.

“Negative,” Spock reported and held out two fingers to him. “Jim’s mental defenses are as effective as they had been before this mission.”

Bones’ frown only deepened. “You went into Jim’s mind. With the dreamsharers,” he said. “That’s impossible with mental defenses.” It was one of the questions that had bothered him and he had turned around in his head, again and again.

“That is correct,” Spock agreed. “However, I confirmed that Jim does not suffer from any repercussions of the archaic methods of dreamsharing we had undergone.”

“Your mental defenses were lowered. That’s why you were so twitchy,” Bones accused sharply. “You left yourself open to basic mental attacks.”

“I know, Bones. Will you come here already?” Jim sounded more amused than worried, which only made Bones’ fingers itch more for his tricorder to scan him and make sure he wasn’t suffering from brain damage. 

“Bones, will you let me explain already?” Jim added when Bones didn’t move quickly enough. There was something soft and vulnerable in his eyes that Bones couldn’t refuse.

He took a few quick steps closer to the bed and brushed his own fingers awkwardly against Spock’s before allowing Jim to pull him down onto the mattress.

“Can’t wait for that explanation,” he muttered darkly. Jim laughed, rolled on top of him and playfully pinned him down on the mattress before kissing him.

“Letting them into my minds was all part of the mission,” he murmured. “Don’t worry about me, Bones, Spock was there every step of the way to make sure nobody took any liberties.”

Despite his reassurances, Bones’ body tensed under Jim’s weight. 

“What did Spock know, Jim?” Bones asked sharply. He was almost struggling against Jim’s hold now, straining against his body weight and trying to sit up.

“He knew everything, Bones.” Jim dropped his forehead to rest against Bones’ collarbone for a moment. “The true mission was top secret, but I promise you, there was never any real danger, neither to us nor to the people helping us.”

Bones stilled and nodded. He understood the meaning of top secret orders, and as little as he liked it, he was willing to accept that there were things he couldn’t be told.

“Odin requested Starfleet to send the Enterprise for assistance in this. He chose us personally for it. He also invited Freya, knowing what his son Loki would do. Apparently Loki knows about pathways between the realms, whatever that means. All we had to do was to be at a certain point in space at a certain time.”

Spock shifted until he was sitting on the edge of the bed, and just like that, Bones was surrounded by them. “Be at a certain point in space and lower your mental defenses, Captain,” he reminded them calmly. “To let a pair of thieves into your mind and manipulate you.”

“They weren’t that bad,” Jim defended them. “I liked Eames.”

“Why would you voluntarily let them into your dreams, that’s what I don’t understand,” Bones muttered.

“Simply put, because Odin asked us, and also, because of this.” Jim lifted a PADD from beside his bed and handed it over to Bones. “Arthur actually went back to Stark’s tower, after they met on Asgard,” he said as Bones read the content of the article that was plastered across the screen. “Together, they developed a new PASIV and then, Eames and Arthur went on to use dreamsharing as a therapy method for mental illnesses.” He grinned. “The history books were never really clear about how and when Arthur and Tony met, and how they managed to overcome their different backgrounds for long enough to build a viable working relationship. I think that’s where we came in.”

“Indeed,” Spock added. “Their relationship proved to be very fruitful. As for Odin Allfather, he forced the confrontation between himself and the Captain. I believe this made Thor acknowledge Jim as his son and heir in the event of his death.”

“Wait a moment.” Bones frowned. “So our meddling in direct violation of the Prime Directive resulted in the modern methods of treating people with mental illnesses?”

“That is correct,” Spock nodded and reached out to brush his fingertips against Bones’ wrist. “We interfered because apparently, we were meant to interfere.”

“Hm.” Bones frowned. “So Thor was in on it?” He finally shifted Jim’s weight off of his chest and into the small space between him and Spock.

“I don’t think so,” Jim admitted. “He never gave any indication that he was aware of the truth. Of his father’s meddling.”

“That seems likely,” Spock agreed. He didn’t protest when Jim wrapped himself around him and shifted slightly to accommodate him.

“Speaking of Thor and the truth,” Bones suddenly said. “I did a scan while you were busy running around Jim’s mind, and filtered out the Asgardian markers. He did say the truth. Thor Odinson really is George Kirk.” He gave Jim a lopsided smirk. “So, I guess, congratulations, he is your father?”

Jim laughed and pulled Spock down to lie next to him. Spock’s fingers reached for Bones again, for a Vulcan kiss while his mouth and Jim’s were occupied with a thoroughly human one.

“Just so we’re clear,” Jim said after a long moment after pulling away from Spock’s mouth, when his shirt was already half off his body and Bones had sucked a bruise into the skin covering his shoulder, “we’re never telling Admiral Pike about the part where his hero is alive, okay?”

~end.

**Author's Note:**

> used prompts:
> 
> \- trapped/captured together  
> \- someone's past coming back to haunt him/her (in a way)  
> \- Pairing: Star Trek/Inception: Kirk/Eames (gen  
> \- Pairing: Star Trek/Avengers: Kirk/Tony Stark (gen, and only in a vague way)  
> \- Pairing: Inception/Avengers: Tony Stark/Arthur (gen)  
> \- Scenario: Avengers/Inception: In his darker days, Bruce had taken some jobs on the side mixing compounds for the dream team. Now he needs their help to save the Avengers.


End file.
